Angelic
by MHWK
Summary: The last Colt and the archangel Gabriel have a long history together, even though they had never met before. Between Lark Colt's unknown past and Gabriel's misunderstanding of life within the Colt Stronghold, tensions run high and trust is an issue. Gabriel/OC, abuse, torture, trauma, slow build up
1. Chapter 1: Lark

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**Lark**

I can't say I knew what to think when I got that call…

Sam Winchester was on the other end of my phone that night as I pulled my 1985 Chevy Scottsdale into a rather unpleasant motel. There are places a hunter must stay to remain off the radar of local law enforcement. It's also effective to drive a Series Ten, one ton metal monster that fits in around rural America as much as a cowboy hat and a pair of mud boots. Police don't look twice.

"Lark," Sam said and the tone in his voice made my heart sink. "I'm sorry," he said.

Now, I've always been used to the Winchesters apologizing. If it wasn't "Sorry, Lark, I borrowed your revolver without your blessing and then lost it," then it was, "Sorry Lark, we borrowed your truck because mine was smashed by an eighteen wheeler." Sons of bitches… This time, however, I wasn't so sure it was something I was going to be able to quickly get over.

"It's Gabriel," he said.

I chuckled. I don't know why. Usually, if it involved Gabriel, it was going to be a bad day anyway. I had had plenty of bad days since I had met that troublesome angel. That only made it worse.

"What about him?" I asked as I pulled into a parking spot and made sure to set the emergency brake. I left it in first gear, in case my brake failed me. I didn't want to be chasing my truck into oncoming traffic like I had the week before.

"He's dead."

I laughed. "What?"

"Lucifer killed him, Lark. I'm sorry."

I couldn't move.

"Lark?"

Taking a slow breath, I sat up straight in my seat and said, "Okay," as calmly as I could. "Thanks for letting me know, Sam. You two be safe out there. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. You know… with Lucifer and all."

Dean's voice came through, he was shouting through the phone and I had to pull it away from my ear. "We're going after the other Horsemen!" he said with all the bravery of a mad man.

"I'll keep an eye out," I replied.

"We're pretty sure we might be looking at an outbreak of the Croatoan virus in the near future," Sam said quickly.

"I'm settling in soon," I told him. "You two worry about yourselves."

"See you soon, Lark," Sam said.

"See you soon, Sam," I said and then added lightheartedly, "And tell Dean to find my damn revolver."

"I have it!" Dean called out through the phone. "And you can have it back. It's a piece of junk anyway!"

I sighed. "You tried to shoot the Devil with it, didn't you?"

"How'd you know?" Dean asked.

"It's my gun, genius," I replied. "I know what it can and can't kill. And if you'd asked _me_ before you went all that way, I could've told you that. It probably works on everything except God and the Devil themselves!"

"Well how were we supposed to know?" Dean griped.

"By asking the owner of the damn gun!" I grumbled back.

"Your uncle never knew anything," Dean muttered.

"Dean Winchester," I said hotly, "you think you're so funny!"

"See you later, Lark," he said and I could hear his smile in his words.

"See you, Dean," I chuckled.

It had always been like that. Almost as long as I had known them. I was a kid again around them. They brought out the best in me, the part of me that wanted to trust and love. They were my brothers. I wasn't trying to replace the blood ones I had lost, that was the last thing I wanted, but there was a camaraderie there that I had with few others. Especially bloodthirsty hunters…

After I hung up, I dropped the phone on the seat beside me. Sam and Dean were the only two that knew about my secret affair with an angel. Mostly because they were the only ones that knew he was an angel. I didn't want them to know how much I actually cared. I could never really cry about anything, and I didn't want them to hear me sobbing at the end of the line. That was why Dean and I had laughed it off. End happy before I was left to myself.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream and pound on the horn of my truck and road-rage my way to the next town with my foot mashed down on the accelerator. Even if it only topped out at eighty, if I was lucky. I had been meaning to fix that but I hadn't gotten around to ordering the parts. Not to mention I didn't see it as being necessary anymore with the coming apocalypse.

I hit the steering wheel once and the pain rattled up through my arm. I couldn't afford to break anything, not myself, nor my truck, so I grabbed my phone and stuffed it into my pocket as I got out. In the passenger seat was my carry case, a duffel bag with necessities like shotguns, ammunition for a small army, my rifle, and my trusty semiautomatic that my father had given me when I was finally allowed to go on hunts. I had six generic grenades left and seven salt-incendiaries that my grandmother had taught me to make. Granted, she used black powder, and I used C4. How the times had changed…

Inside my hotel room, I took in the drab carpeting that was discolored in some places. Someone had tried to clean up spills on the repulsive red shag with commercial cleaners and botched it. Every bottle says to test a small area first. Apparently they couldn't read.

I groaned as I closed the door behind me. The cheapest room had two full-sized beds. It felt empty. I threw my bag on one bed and sat on the other. I needed to unpack. I needed to shower and slip my sawed-off under my pillow before I slept. I needed to sleep.

There was no way I was going to sleep.

Lucifer was loose. Who could sleep knowing Lucifer was loose? Gabriel could, if angels slept. I swear he never had a care in the world. Why would he? He could leave back to Heaven whenever he wanted.

I opened my bag and took out a set of slightly worn clothes. The outer clothes never mattered. As long as my underwear was clean, I didn't give a damn. Pistol and sawed-off in hand, I locked the door and went to the bathroom. I locked that door, too. I wasn't about to be caught with my pants down with a bunch of demons entering the room. It had happened once before and it was not on my list of finer moments.

The water was as hot as I could get it, and steam filled the whole room. There are times when a cold shower is necessary, but for some reason, scalding water was something I could think through. Pain was something I could work with, something all hunters worked with, but I am the direct descendent of Samuel Colt. My job was always to grin and bear it, shut up and take it, and hunt the evil in the world. I was raised to be ruthless. I was raised knowing that a little collateral damage was okay if it benefitted the greater good. The greater good. What a load of horse shit.

My father would have been furious if he had seen me playing nice with the Winchesters. He would've blown a gasket when I adopted more of their beliefs than those he had thrust upon me. Every soul was worth something. It had to be. If not… What the hell was I trying to save?

The hot water burned every inch of my skin. I tried not to think about Gabriel, but it was much too difficult. I found myself sitting in the tub with my knees drawn to my chest like a child. My head was quickly filling with memories that I wanted so desperately to go away. I couldn't cry. I am a Colt. And Colts don't sit in the bathtub and cry like a child. We step back into the world and get revenge.

Revenge. On who? Lucifer? That was the quickest way to die. That was dingdong-ditch on Death's doorstep. Unless you were actually ditching the Horseman's doorstep. Close enough.

I closed my eyes and heaved a long sigh. I was numb. I couldn't feel the pain of the hot water any longer. It was always like that. My father had once told me someone could burn my skin off and I wouldn't feel it. I had a scar on my lower back that had proved otherwise.

Shaking off my own unsettled feelings, I rose back to my feet and finished showering. I figured the heat was somehow slowly damaging all the nerve endings in my body and when I couldn't feel it anymore, it was probably safe to get out soon. I never thought to actually change the temperature. Gabriel had always laughed at me about that. Not that that was one particular thing he laughed about. He laughed at me for everything. At first it made me angry. Then I realized the truth. He was just as broken as I was.

I first met him in Oregon. I had been following the tracks of what I had thought was a Trickster. Sam and Dean had warned me about the one they had encountered and efficiently stabbed through the chest. Finding the right wood for the stake was a bitch.

I had tracked the strange occurrences into the woods. I was a smart one, going into the woods alone, but I had never been allowed the luxury of a fellow hunter to protect my back. I was only a little envious of the Winchesters.

It was easy to play stupid. Naivete was always easy to project. When I walked into that forest, I had on a long black skirt with a pistol strapped to my inner thigh. That was the first thing my father had taught me to carry. Under my little jacket, I had my sawed-off packed with salt rounds. I had one of those professional cameras that nature observers used. It was old, but it was probably considered vintage. In my camera bag was my ammunition. I had checked myself in the mirror before I even stepped foot out of my truck. Nothing would have been the wiser.

I was looking through the wide lens of my camera, taking pictures of random things and pretending I was professional about it, when I saw an old wooden building. If I was trying to lay low, I might have considered a place like that. I took a picture of it and then went to the broken windows and looked in. Nothing but shadows and spider webs.

Finding the front door, I pulled it open. The hinges still worked. Everything looked exactly how I expected it to until I stepped across the threshold. Then it turned into Barnum and Bailey's and I couldn't help but stare. Being strictly raised as a hunter doesn't prepare a person for an empty house turning literally into a big-tent circus. The kid in me that never got to be a kid was suddenly screaming "Circus!" in my head and I had to rein in my excitement at the sight of elephants and tigers. The more logical part of my head then beat my inner child into submission. This wasn't real, whatever it was, but I didn't let my surprise and my smile falter. Someone knew I was there. It was best to keep them from feeling threatened. I could play dumb.

I was wandering around the empty seats, my eyes fixed on the people and animals below. Someone could have killed me the moment I stepped through the door, when I was completely confused. But they didn't. I was trying to watch my back and look completely preoccupied at the same time. It worked. Until a man appeared beside me. I reacted before I could think and I jumped away from him. I let myself trip over my own feet and fall to the seat beside me.

"I'm sorry I startled you," he laughed and offered me his hand.

He had a kind face, one that looked like he enjoyed laughing. I wondered if his laughter was often directed at the misfortune of others. I took his hand in mine and he pulled me to my feet. It was a warm hand.

"I'm sorry," I said sheepishly. "I'm probably not supposed to be here, am I?"

"I can look the other way," he told me with one of those much-too-charming smiles. It was almost disarming.

Dumb people just accept everything at face value. There was no way I was ever going to ask how a circus showed up in an old shack in the Oregon woods. I was just accepting it.

"Would you like to go down there?" he asked me.

I blurted, "Would I!"

He held his hand out to me and I took it with all the outward trust of someone that was trying to get herself killed. I simply wasn't sure how people could do that. Take someone's hand and expect them to play nice. I wasn't raised that way.

Stepping up to the outside of the ring, I asked myself if this man beside me was the Trickster. He didn't seem like any Trickster I had come across before. The silver ring I wore, spray-painted gold, had no effect on him either. I had the thought to test the stake I had hidden up my jacket sleeve, but thought better of it. I could play along a little longer. I wasn't in a hurry to blow my cover.

"Most people would ask a lot of questions," he said and I turned to him grinning.

"I'm not most people," I told him. I let a little too much of my own personality slip through the character I was playing. I turned my own mischievous smirk into a flirty grin that I had copied from young lovers.

For nearly an hour, I was petting tigers and elephants and this fun little capuchin monkey that sat on my shoulder and mimicked almost every movement I made. With approval, I took pictures. I really wondered if I would have pictures of the circus, or just pictures of the inside of a dilapidated wooden shack.

He was watching me the whole time. As much as I was trying to figure him out, I was certain he was trying to do the same with me.

Everything felt real. That was what I didn't understand. My encounter with a true Trickster was easy to leave. It was mind over matter. An angry dog had just been a table. One thing was always something else. But the tigers felt real. The monkey on my shoulder had weight. A Trickster would have just been in my head. This was no Trickster.

The sudden thought that I had been playing with real tigers like they were kittens settled in my mind like a weight. I had been much too careless.

Something must have shown on my face as I stared across that active circus, because the man then said, "Who are you?"

All eyes were on me. The tigers were growling at my back. The monkey had abandoned me. The tent was at a standstill and I was stuck in the middle. I turned to him and sighed, "The question isn't who am I. It's _what_ are _you_?"

"You're a hunter?" he almost seemed to laugh.

I wondered why it was so hard to believe. No one else had laughed at me like that before. I had my sawed-off aimed at his face and he only laughed harder.

"That won't kill me," he said. "Man, you really walked in here with no idea of what you're up against."

"Should I have brought holy-fire?" I asked.

He wasn't smiling anymore. He didn't look happy at all.

The circus disappeared. We were suddenly standing high on a cliff, just the two of us. My back was to a long drop and a messy end.

"Guess I won't need this," I muttered and pulled the stake from my sleeve. I then dropped it off the side of the cliff and whistled as gravity took it to the ground.

He only stared at me, his eyes narrowed. This was the first time I had seen an angel in person. There had been stories passed down through generations of my family. And there could only be one thing that made illusion a reality like the circus. Tricksters just weren't strong enough to alter reality like that.

"I know when I'm outclassed, Angel," I told him, my voice even. Every flirty aspect of me was gone. Now I was just a hunter in a bad disguise and he was looking right through me.

"If you'll excuse me," I said as respectfully as I could. Then I walked past him. It was just a meatsuit with a friendly face. Poor guy probably wouldn't survive if the angel left his body, if he was even still alive. There was no telling what kind of damage that soul had been through with all the stories I had heard about the Trickster I had been hunting.

I was less than four feet behind him when we were no longer on the cliff's edge. Everything was dark. I stood very still and closed my eyes. I couldn't see, so I tried to listen.

"You never answered my question," I heard. It was still the angel's voice.

A light was switched on and I could feel the heat through my eyelids. I brought up my empty left hand and shielded my eyes before I opened them. I couldn't see anything outside of my circle of light. It was blinding. I closed my eyes again and listened. He had put me in the spotlight. I wasn't happy about it, but I wasn't about to rise to his baiting.

"Aren't you supposed to know things, Angel?" I asked calmly. Now I was baiting him. I couldn't help it. From birth, everyone of the Colt line was branded with Enochian. Angels couldn't find us. Demons couldn't find us. We were born invisible, and we would die invisible. It was Samuel Colt's Blessing. That was what the rest of us down the line called it. We didn't know how it happened, but it showed up on the x-rays. It was always fun trying to explain that one to doctors. It was also probably the only thing that made both me and my father laugh together.

I could almost feel the darkness recede. His scare tactic wasn't going to make me confess anything. I was raised in the dark. I was beaten bloody in the dark. It was daylight I feared. The dark was my cave, the place I lived and thrived. Daylight was where normal people carried on without a care. I didn't belong in that world.

Feeling a cool breeze across my face, I opened my eyes to see the forest again. The shack was gone. I wondered if it had ever really been there at all.

He was standing in front of me but I was looking past him, down the path I had walked to arrive in the company of an angel. He was watching me, but I didn't dare look upon his face. He didn't answer me and I knew he was being just as petty as I was. I didn't need an answer from him, though. It wasn't my place to question angels, and I didn't have to answer to them either.

I started walking away, with every intention of leaving when he blocked my way appeared before me with that whoosh of wings that I would one day find incredibly annoying.

"You don't exist," he told me.

"You know, you're not the first to tell me that," I said with a smile.

Being invisible was a blessing and a curse. We Colts have always been unable to hold down a job in civilized society, ever since the first of us. If we walked into a restaurant, we were overlooked. We are never truly seen. It's lonely being an unknown face in the crowd. I believed he could see me because I walked into his reality. He just had no idea who I was. And he wouldn't until I told him.

It had almost been the same with the Winchesters, but they had shown up on a monster hunt that I was already on and it was chaos from the first moment we met. Only now do I dare to say that I consider them my friends.

The angel stared back at me and the look in his face almost made me speak. I knew the trick. He was trying to see into my mind and get my truths that way. It wouldn't work. I smiled back at him with a dare. I could see his frustration. This was my first time pissing off an angel, and I was enjoying it more than I should have.

He seemed to settle down where he stood. He let his annoyance visibly fall away and he only looked back at me with his charming smile. I was skeptical. "Don't you belong in heaven?" I asked. "With the rest of them?"

"Heaven's boring," he told me.

An angel that would rather hang out with humans. I didn't know what to think. I wasn't about to trust a word out of his mouth. I didn't trust anyone, why would an angel of the Lord be any different.

"Who are you?" he asked again, this time softer. "I feel like I should know."

"Don't worry about it," I said as I walked around him. "As soon as I'm out of sight, you'll forget all about me."

The only reason Sam, Dean, and Bobby remembered me was because I had broken the wall. I had offered my name and a line of contact. To everyone else, I was a passing thought.

I was walking back down the path to where I parked my truck when I felt my shoulders tense. I still had my sawed-off in my hand as I spun around and held it up. The angel was there, following me. He stopped in his tracks and said, "It still won't work."

"Might hurt enough to get you to go away," I replied through clenched teeth.

"I don't like puzzles."

"Shouldn't have pretended to be a Trickster," I said. Then I asked, "Why are you following me?"

I wasn't expecting the answer he gave me.

"You're alone," he said. "No one should have to exist alone."

I was alone. It really hadn't sunk in until an angel told me. I knew I was by myself, and perhaps that was the same thing as being alone, but truly alone was another story. He was right. I existed alone in my invisible world. Had he seen that in me when he had turned out the lights? How comfortable I was in the dark, by myself. Most hunters were, but I was not most hunters.

"What do you want?" I asked, lowering my shotgun.

"I want to know who you are," he said. "I should know who you are."

"You stop to think maybe God wanted me like this for a reason?" I asked him. "Because I have. And I think there's a reason I shouldn't answer that question."

He looked back at me with this terrible sadness. He was laughing at me only moments ago for threatening him. Now he pitied me. I shot him.

He looked down at the buckshot that riddled his stomach and said, "You're buying me a new shirt."

My shoulders dropped and I bowed my head. I couldn't keep my shoulders from shaking.

"Are you laughing at me?" he asked

I couldn't stop from laughing in his face. He had to ask and I couldn't help myself.

"You don't get to laugh very often, do you?" he asked and I could hear his pitying tone.

I wanted to shoot him again, but it wouldn't do anything. He'd still be patronizing. I turned my back on him and began walking away. I didn't feel him behind me, but I was sure he wasn't about to leave me alone just yet. When I reached my truck, I went to the bed and put my camera and ammo-pack into the toolbox. The moment I opened the driver's side door, I jumped back.

"So where are we going?" the angel asked as he looked back at me from the passenger side of the bench seat.

"_We_," I said as I got into the truck, "are not going anywhere together. Get out."

"You can't make me," he said.

"You are such a child!" I shouted back.

He was grinning at me. I had taken the bait and let him get under my skin. At that moment, I understood it didn't matter if I yelled at him or shot him in the face. He was going to still be sitting in my truck laughing at me. He was going to make my life more difficult than it already was, and I was perfectly willing to reciprocate.

"Shut up," I said as closed my door and put my key into the ignition. The pistol strapped to my thigh was making sitting uncomfortable. I reached up my skirt to pull it loose without a second thought to my company and then I set it and the sawed-off between us.

"So that's how guns are made," he said and I stared at him.

I turned the key in the ignition and threw it into reverse, peeling out and throwing him into the dash. Angels were not meant to ride in vehicles. "Put your seatbelt on," I said as I spun the wheel and put it into first gear.

That was how we had met. Dysfunctional. He was talkative and enjoyed my company. I was silent and despised him. I couldn't get rid of the angel in my truck. People saw him. He wanted people to see him, and it drew attention to me. I realized what was happening when I was pulled over for speeding. I had never been pulled over for speeding. I didn't know what to do. No one ever paid attention to my truck, ever. They couldn't see me.

"Get out and scream about bees," the angel told me.

"What?" I asked.

"Do it! Before he gets over here."

Never trust an angel…

I did as he said. I jumped out of my truck and ran around swatting at the air shouting "Bees! Bees!" and then for extra measure, I jumped into the ditch. I wasn't counting on the fact that it had recently rained and it was filled with a foot and a half of mud.

Everything was quiet until I heard, "Ma'am? Are you here? I think the bees are gone!"

I pulled my head out of the mud and the poor officer screamed.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I would have tried to help, but I'm highly allergic."

"Me too," I said as I tried to climb out of the ditch. The officer offered his hand to help pull me out and I took it. I glanced back to my truck then and saw no one else in it. "Think they're gone?" I asked.

"Hopefully," he said to me. "You have a better day, Ma'am. I apologize for the inconvenience."

I looked myself over and said, "What inconvenience?" and the two of us had an amicable chuckle.

I went back to my truck and when I opened the door, the angel was there again. I didn't look at him, but I could tell he was smiling again. I climbed inside and after I shut the door, he said, "How's that non-existence going for you?"

I said nothing but put the truck into gear and maintained the speed limit to a gas station that had a shower area for the truckers. The angel came inside the store with me and I was noticed immediately and met with giggles and stares. I had to get rid of him.

After I showered and cleaned up, I went outside to my truck and he was sitting in the truck bed staring up at the stars like he had never seen them before. "You've gotta go," I told him, breaking into his serenity like a wrecking ball.

"It was just a little mud," he replied. "You humans are so sensitive."

"You don't understand," I told him. "I am invisible for a reason. You draw attention to me and put my life in danger. I won't have that."

He didn't understand. I had yelled at him before but he wasn't smiling back at me anymore. We had spent nearly two weeks together on the road and I had called him every name in the book, and he had only smiled. Everything was a joke to him. I slept in my truck and ate in my truck, and for two weeks I hadn't found a single thing to hunt. It wasn't normal. I could sneak up on anything and now it was like demons smelled their blood on my hands and took off running. It was an awful lot of blood.

I knew the only way I would get rid of him. I trusted him enough to have him in my passenger seat. There was nothing he could do to me. Even if I left him at that truck stop, he would remember me, but he wouldn't be able to find me.

"What's your name, Angel?" I asked.

He smoothly leapt out of the back of my truck like he knew what was coming. He was going to cooperate. "I am Gabriel," he said.

I stepped away from him. "Oh holy shit…" was all I could say. It wasn't okay to yell at lower level angels, and it definitely wasn't okay to yell at the archangel Gabriel. My blood froze in my veins. I was speechless. All of my bravado was gone. I was suddenly afraid. I hadn't been acquainted with fear since I was a child. It was not a familiar feeling.

"They were right," I said softly, "We all go to Hell…"

He stared back at me with a question on his face that I didn't want to answer.

Trying to maintain some semblance of control in the situation I said, "I need a minute…"

I got into the truck and turned the key. When it roared to life I looked to the passenger side window and found him standing there, just looking back at me, waiting.

"Are you coming?" I asked and he got into the cab.

Before he could even close the door, I was leaving the parking lot. I was trying to keep my foot off the accelerator. I couldn't be caught speeding again, I didn't think the bees excuse was going to work twice.

I had to get away from the town, on a back road where it was quiet and dark. I needed somewhere I could think. I found a bridge and parked my truck on the side of the road. Then I got out and started running. I ran down to the river below the bridge and stopped.

I stood there listening to the water and slowly I could breathe again. Who the hell was I to open my mouth against an archangel?

There was a Heaven. There were angels. There were demons. There was a Hell. These were things I had always known. But there was a difference between knowing and truly seeing. I was just a hunter thrown in the middle of everything. I had to get my head straight again… I wasn't crazy after all.

I heard footsteps and I glanced back to see the archangel Gabriel approaching me in his human meatsuit. Poor handsome meatsuit. He stopped at a distance from me. No pressure.

I inhaled so deep that my chest hurt and then I turned to him. The dark was comforting. The stars were all the light I needed. I could see fine without fluorescents.

"I apologize," I tried to say amicably. "My name is Laura Skylark Colt. I am a descendent of Samuel Colt. Everyone… just calls me Lark."

He stared back at me with an expression that betrayed his thoughts. "For the love of Dad…" he sighed heavily.

"What...?" I asked.

"I can't kill you after all."

"W-what?" I was starting to think not setting him on fire in the first place was a bad idea.

"You are the only person on the planet that knows I am here," he said and shrugged. "You destroyed my very own witness protection program."

"I… what?" was all I managed to say before I got angry. "You made people see me!" I shouted.

"You're only human," he said, "You'll live."

Looking back on this conversation, I know now what he was doing. But at that time, I was furious. "You're not even supposed to be here! This is my world. If you have no respect for my life, you have no business being here. Not to mention setting your ridiculous reality traps for idiots."

"I caught you in it, didn't I?"

I didn't know what to say. All that came out was, "Asshole."

He smiled again. He had a strange way of breaking the ice.

"I have to get going," I told him, a finality to my words.

"You're just leaving me here?" he asked, offended.

"You're going to get me killed," I said. "And I have no business hanging around with an angel pretending to be a Trickster. That's painting a target on my back and I can't have that."

"You're the last Colt of reproductive soundness. You can't die until after you have a child," he said plainly.

I couldn't stop the words from coming out of my mouth. "And you can go screw yourself, because that is not happening." Then I blurted, "Reproductive soundness? What the hell am I? A cow?" I glared back at him and then had to look away. I was getting angry. To some angels, I was sure all humans were cattle, just a lower being.

I had a temper, like everyone in my family, but pointless anger had been beaten out of me as a child. It was a useless thing to have. I had never been angry like I was around the archangel. I was not bitter or petty, and here with an angel of the Lord, I could have burned him in holy-fire and been happy to dance on his ashes. I didn't like being angry. It blurred my thoughts.

"I have to go," I said softly. "I have a job to do."

"Let someone else handle it," he shrugged.

"I am the someone else," I replied sharply. "Angels don't take care of us poor humans. We have to do it ourselves."

"What a burden," he sighed.

I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. I could hardly ever tell.

"So you let yourself be pushed into an outcast society, alone, so you can be the hero?" he asked me.

"I am alone because of the Enochian on my bones; the spell on my family put in place by God or some angel that banished my family to solitude," I spat.

"You blame God?" he asked.

"No," I replied with a shake of my head. "I always figured someone had a plan for me. And this was it. I don't wish my fate on anyone, and that is why I do what I do. Not to be a hero, but it's all I know. And the people in this world would fall to pieces if they knew what blood felt like on their hands. Let them think they can still question the existence of God and demons."

I was going to leave an angel under a bridge in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't have him with me.

"I don't know how to live like a normal person, Gabriel," I said softly. "I was born to be alone. Please don't follow me anymore. I have a job to do."

He watched me go. I left him there standing at a riverbank beneath the stars. He would be fine. He made for a charming human.

On my own again, I reveled in the quiet. It was just my music, that Gabriel had criticized, and the sound of my truck. I could speed and never be noticed. I walked into stores and no one saw me. People forgot me moments after speaking to me, like the cashier. I was very much alone.

Hunting came easy. Every night was another demon. I fell back into my routine of demons, blood, and everything else that was strange in the night. I had existed for only a moment in Gabriel's eyes, and then I was gone. I was numb to the world. I lived in my head. There was no anger or hate. I felt nothing.

It wasn't until I realized I had lost something that I understood I never had anything. I had a name I wasn't allowed to share and a life that wasn't my own. I was a Colt, and I had a legacy to uphold. That was my reason for existence. I wasn't human. I was just a place-marker in history. Gabriel had said I was just alive to reproduce.

I slammed on my brakes in the middle of a deserted highway. That couldn't be it. I had a life for a reason. My destiny was my own… wasn't it?

I was gripping the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles were pale. My hands shook. I was nothing. I had to accept that again. I was a Colt, and we were hunters. That was all.

I had let the Trickster trick me into thinking I was more. I wasn't. I was alone, and that was how it had to be. That was how I needed it to be. That was my normal. The angel could stare at the stars and dream, but I had no dreams. Colts were not allowed to dream. What ifs were never allowed to enter my mind.

Briefly, I wondered if this was an identity crisis. It felt like one. I needed to shut down my brain and let it go. I took human emotions and dropped them off the cliff like I did to the stake that was meant for a false Trickster. If my father had still been alive, he would have done it for me. I was being nice to myself.

I took a deep breath and restarted my truck. It had stalled out when I took it to a complete stop without downshifting. As I headed down the road again, I turned off my phone. God had meant for me to be alone. I didn't need anyone telling me I could live a normal life. I didn't want one.

On a moonless night, as I sat in the bed of my truck and ate a tasteless sandwich from a gas station refrigerator, I found myself staring up at the stars. I wished that night that I had a dog. Sam had Dean, it was the same thing. I chuckled after the thought and shook my head. The poor dog would be a liability. If I happened to be seen by anyone, demons would attack my dog just to get to me.

Maybe a goldfish… I could glue a fishbowl to my dashboard.

When I had left the Winchesters, I had not felt like this. I had been happy to return to my solitude. Perhaps it was because Gabriel had made others see me as well. The Winchesters shared my world, and then they departed. The archangel had pulled me into existence, a place I had never been before. What was it to truly exist?

I grumbled to myself and threw the uneaten half of my sandwich out the back of my truck. I had lost my appetite. Hugging my sawed-off, I climbed into my cab, locked the doors, and slept out in the middle of nowhere.


	2. Chapter 2: Gabriel

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**Gabriel**

Lark Colt… I never would have hurt her. Ever. From the moment I heard her name, I knew exactly who she was. I read her lineage on her face. I saw the resemblance in the way she stood. I could taste her ruthlessness and smell the demon's blood on her skin like a lingering memory. She was one of the fearless Colts.

Like all humans, I could read who she was, but the Enochian carved into her bones prevented me from seeing who she had been, where she had been, and where she was going. That was the way I had made that spell for Samuel Colt; to protect his family. Generations later, this was what had happened. One last Colt to preserve the legacy, and she dwelled outside of the civilization she protected, away from the people she needed to be a part of to create an heir to the Colt line.

I alone had sought to protect the Colts, and instead I had doomed them to darkness and solitude. They, she, walked around like a soldier instead of a hunter.

In the two weeks I had traveled with her, waiting to hear her name, I asked questions that she never answered. I told her stories that she didn't care about. And she acted as if I wasn't there. During the day, her hands were on the steering wheel, and at night, she slept in the cab of her truck with the doors locked as she cradled her sawed-off shotgun like a teddy bear.

I didn't understand what had happened. When she finally did speak to me, it was in every rough tone imaginable. She didn't want me there. Even knowing I was an angel, she had made it clear that her passenger seat was no place for me.

It wasn't until sometime in the second week that a song came on the radio and she started singing. I wasn't paying attention to the words, but she was. All I could make of it was an Irishman singing about getting drunk and not sinking a boat.

"You listen to this?" I asked when it was over. It was the first time she had even played any music around me and she promptly turned it off. Her personality had shown a little and just as quickly she had put it away, as if it belonged in a box. It wasn't a human characteristic.

"I meant," I said, "It was unexpected. Every hunter I've come across is either your classic rock or mainstream." I reached forward and turned the radio back on and she stared at me. Something said she had killed for less.

She let the CD play for the rest of the day, only touching it to skip one song. By the fourth pass, I was singing Float, and she was, too.

And then I saw the police lights in the mirror. Her first response was to swear, "What the fuck?" then she pulled over. She hadn't noticed how people had been able to see her. People glanced her way at gas stations. The cashiers watched her leave the store instead of immediately forgetting she was ever there. When the siren caught her attention, there was realization on her face. She had never been pulled over before.

Jokingly, I suggested, "Get out and scream about bees!" I had seen one too many movies.

"What?" she said and looked at me with panic.

I felt a bit of guilt by telling her, "Do it before he gets over here."

I wasn't expecting the very serious hunter to do as I said, but she did. I took leave of the cab so that the officer wouldn't see me, nor would he hear me laugh when she dove into the ditch.

She wasn't smiling when she saw me again. She was covered almost head to toe in mud as she climbed back into the cab. Again, she was not happy with me.

When we arrived at a truck stop, she was seen again, and this time she seemed to find the stares and smirks humiliating. She left me without a word and I returned to her truck. The sky was dark, and as I sat in the back of her truck, I couldn't help but look up to Heaven. I was nostalgic, only for home, not for many of those who were there. The Human realm was my home. There was just too much here to leave.

I lost track of time. Time. It's never been anything for me. And for a moment I was caught in my thoughts.

"You've got to go," I heard and turned to see her staring back at me with what I can only describe as fear and determination. She hid her anxiety under a carefully constructed mask of annoyed indifference. She was going to do whatever she had to do to get rid of me. She was no longer completely invisible. I was seen, and she was seen with me.

She seemed to steady herself, her fists clenched tightly. "What's your name, Angel?" She asked me. Being called Angel was the least of my favorite names she had called me, but it was the one she used the most. She occasionally got more creative with Birdbrain, Featherhead, Goody-Two-Shoes, Loki, and my favorite, Hey You.

I left the truck and stood before her. I was tempted to give her a false name, but I knew if I wanted her name, I was going to have to give her mine. I merely said, "I am Gabriel," but someone would have thought I had told her I killed her mother.

Her eyes grew wide and I could almost hear her heart leap out of her chest. There was true panic in her face and it was clear she didn't know what to do with it. She moved as if she were lost, unsure of where to go, until she got back into her truck.

All she had said was she needed a moment to think, and then I was back in the truck and we were speeding down the road, out into the night and far away from the lights of human civilization. The stars were brighter. The night was darker.

Pulling off the road at a bridge, she barely turned off the truck before she got out and ran away. I was left sitting in the cab, in the dark. For a moment I watched her stand down at the river's edge. This was her comfort, away from everyone and everything. Her dark solitude.

I could see her starting to come back after the shock of discovering I was an archangel, and I left the truck to meet her at the riverbank.

Laura Skylark Colt. I couldn't believe she was a Colt. It made sense, but my own spell had kept me from seeing her. I saw her then. All the way back to my friend Samuel Colt. She was the last of her family that could produce an heir. If she died before that, the Colt family would be gone. This could not happen. I must have chosen my words poorly, for Lark reacted as if I told her she had to cut her hand off.

She blamed the spell I had put on her for her distance to the other humans she shared her world with. I wanted to tell her it was me, and that I was sorry for the harm I had done in turning her and her family into the invisible Colts. Before I could say anything, she left, and asked me not to follow her any longer.

Lark Colt wanted her solitude more than someone to end her loneliness. I wondered briefly if she even knew how alone she was.

I moved on. There was trouble to stir up somewhere. Lark and the Colts were not far from my mind wherever I went. I wanted to know what had happened. More than anything, I wanted to know what had happened to the Colts I had called my friends, what had happened to the family I had said I would protect.

I had to find Lark, but she would have to come to me. And to get any answers, I was almost certain I would have to make her angry. When she yelled, she spoke. When she was calm, there was no reason to speak. I was certain she would rethink her decision to not use holy-fire on me before.

I knew I had to tread carefully, not to draw attention to myself as anything other than a pagan god. Lark was the only one to know the truth of my existence on Earth, and I was hoping she had the sense to keep it to herself. I also knew I had to act quick. She was attached to her truck and would drive in her sleep if she could. Every moment I waited, she was driving miles and miles further away. I had no idea of which direction she was even going. I had been tricked by my own spell… It must have been what the humans called Karma.

I went to a small town, about six thousand people, and I gave them everything they ever wanted. If it didn't draw Lark, then it would at least cause enough chaos that she would have to notice. Eventually, she would show.

I took on the face of another man and sat on a bench outside a convenience store to watch. People were easy to please. Love, money. Sometimes the two were the same. They all believed it equated to happiness. Everyone wanted something, anything.

As people cheered and threw money about, and some of them started working on the rest of their lives, I watched it turn bad. Those who had wanted something other than money began to feel cheated. There was a lesson in all of this. Perhaps it was watch what you pray for.

On the third day, as I sat waiting on my bench, the old, gray Chevy Scottsdale pulled into town. It sounded like a monster as it came to a stop on the other side of the street.

Lark stepped out of the cab and looked around with a void expression on her face. If I hadn't known who she was, I would have thought she was a local just trying to buy groceries.

Crossing the road, she was stopped by a slightly younger man that loudly proclaimed, "I want you to marry me." That was something I didn't understand. She was pretty, but not love-at-first-sight pretty. Aside from her long red hair and her feminine-build she didn't look much like a woman in her layered clothes. She just looked like a hunter.

To her credit, she looked back at the man and said, "You're in my way."

He appeared mystified, unsure why the spell that had given everyone what they wanted wouldn't give him a pretty girl. Disheartened, he walked away. Lark however, stood in the middle of the road and shouted, "Alright, Loki! What're you playing at?"

I had forgotten how quick the Colts were. I let the world around her come to a halt, and she spun about, looking from one still person to another. Then she looked at me. I hadn't moved at all, but it was almost as if she could tell I was the only threat.

Standing, I changed back to the face and body that she knew, my vessel. Lark's hardened gaze lessened at the sight of me, but she still didn't seemed pleased.

"What?" she asked abruptly.

"If you'd left me a phone number, I could've just called you," I said.

"You have a cell phone?" she asked with a skeptical look.

"How else do you think I keep in touch with all the other pagan gods on holidays?" I asked.

Her brows furrowed and she asked, "You've got my attention. Now what do you want?"

"I have questions," I said, "about what happened to your family."

"No," she told me straight forward. I wondered if she had been humoring me before by letting me ride in the truck with her. Now she knew she could tell me no.

I had to know. I made her an offer. "I can give you anything you want. Everything you've always wanted," I bargained.

Immediately she turned it back on me. "Like you did for them?" she said and pointed to the people around her.

"It wouldn't be so bad, would it?" I asked as I approached. "A normal life. Family. You wouldn't have to be a hunter." I was going to have to push harder.

"Thank you for telling me what I want," she said sarcastically, "since you know everything about me. Please, why don't you make lifelong decisions for me as well?"

I wasn't sure if she was looking for a fight or this was just how she was, but I made the decision to take her sarcasm and use it. She held her ground as I approached her. Before she could say anything, I touched her forehead and she fell unconscious.

I took her to a new reality where it was as close to the typical American dream as I could get it and I placed her into the soft sheets of a large bed. Before I left her, I gave her a long nightgown instead of her hunter clothes.

She didn't look out of place. A home with a white picket fence, the sun shining through the balcony window, I could see her living comfortably in this place, even if it was a dream. As I stood there, I found myself daydreaming. I could see myself there, too.

Slowly, Lark began to wake. She stirred and rolled over on her side. Nothing else had moved in the room, but she knew this was not the cab of her truck. In an instant, she saw me, bolted out of the bed, and struck the wall with her back. The shelves above her shook and fell from their anchors and decorative ceramics came down on her head and shoulders and shattered on the floor.

She had tried to protect her head, but when she looked at her hand, it was covered in blood. Her eyes went down to the delicate nightgown I had chosen for her and she nearly screamed. It was a terrified, strangled cry that brought me to action. I rushed across the room to tell her I could fix it; the clothes, the blood, everything.

Her gaze went to me and the panic I had seen before in her was nothing compared to the pleading helplessness she gave me then. "Stop," she whimpered. There was no strength in her voice. "Please stop. Let me go," she said. "You don't want me. I'm nothing. Please let me go."

Lark fell to her knees and dropped her head to the pale carpet. She wouldn't look at me. She shook violently. But she didn't cry.

I took everything away. I put her back on the street in her own clothes. I put the town back the way it was and let everything go. I kept my distance when she came to, standing out on the street with everyone walking by like any other day.

I had panicked. I could have wiped it from her mind like it had never happened, but I didn't know what to do. She had broken to pieces.

What had I done?

Whether she thought it was a dream or not, she composed herself with that void mask and returned to her truck. She was gone. She would remember. And I was sure I would not get another chance to speak with her again. How could I apologize for that?

I had pushed her too far.


	3. Chapter 3: Lark

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Chapter 3: Lark

As calmly as possible, I ran for my life. There was something wrong with that archangel Gabriel. He had taken his playing Trickster to heart. I didn't know what he had been getting at. He had questions for me that I didn't want to answer. Had he been planning to take them out of me by force? I considered myself blessed that he let me go. I could have stopped that man on the street from touching me, but I couldn't have stopped an archangel from getting what he wanted.

I had gone to that town with only the intentions of putting the trouble to an end. The Colts are hunters, not heroes. If people get saved along the way, then that was good, but that was never the priority. It was never my top priority to be a savior.

I drove all night. I wasn't sure where I was even going, but something told me to keep moving. If I stopped, everything would catch up to me and I didn't want that. The past was supposed to stay buried in the past, not rear its head in memory.

Somehow, I ended up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, sitting in my truck across the street from a salvage yard. This was the last place I wanted to be, but I didn't know where else to go. I had been sitting in my truck for a little over an hour in the late evening when my phone rang in my glove box. I jumped. It never rang. Who would be calling the invisible Colt?

Reaching over, I pulled the little flip phone out and answered it. I didn't even look at the number that was calling. If they had mine, it was enough to answer. I didn't put any contacts into it. "Hello?" I said unsure.

A gruff voice on the other end said, "You just going to sit out there all night or are you coming in?"

"I—" I choked. "In," was all I managed to say.

I dropped my phone back into my glove box and stepped out of my truck with my sawed-off in hand. I had ended up on Bobby Singer's doorstep, but it didn't mean I wanted to be there, or that I trusted the man waiting inside the house.

As I stepped up to the door, he opened it like he had been waiting for me to get there. I was startled, and I aimed my sawed-off at his face.

"Easy," he said softly. "My mistake." He stepped away from me very slowly, as if I was some wild animal he couldn't turn his back to. I didn't blame him.

I was hesitant to walk through the door, but I did. He was too far away to close the door behind me, so I held out my hand and closed it for him. He seemed to relax a little then.

"How are you, Laura?" he asked me. I wasn't used to hearing my first name. Everyone did call me Lark, even my own family when they were around. Bobby was the only one that had elected to call me Laura. I wasn't sure if I liked it, but I let it go.

"I…" I couldn't get a sentence to form. I was more shaken up than I thought I was.

Bobby noticed and said, "Look, I've got dinner on, you're welcome to stay as long as you need to." And then he left me to go to the kitchen.

I was standing just inside the door and had never felt so comfortable in my life. Bobby gave me my space. He wanted nothing from me, he never had. He offered what he could, and I never felt threatened in his presence.

Slowly, I followed him into the kitchen. I was hungry. I couldn't remember eating recently, and the smell of whatever he was cooking made me sit down at the table. I put my sawed-off on the table beside me and he never said a word. I wouldn't shoot Bobby if I didn't have to. I was almost certain I wouldn't have to.

"I always make a little extra," he told me as he set a bowl in front of me. "Never know who's going to show up." Then he sat as far away from me as he could.

As I set my spoon into whatever it was before me, I waited for it to cool and thought hard about my next question. I wasn't sure I wanted to know Bobby's answer.

"What…" I began slowly and I gained his attention. "Bobby," I started again, "what do you know about me?"

There had to be a reason he was so cautious. He had to know something. Even when I had first met him, he had always regarded me with amicable distance. At first, he wouldn't even look me in the eye.

"You're a Colt," he told me plainly. "You're a good kid from a really messed up family. You can't blame yourself for the way things ended up, Laura. Not everyone is going to hurt you like they did."

I dropped my spoon back into my bowl and stared at him.

"I knew your uncle," he told me, "very briefly."

I was the only one that didn't seem to know him.

"If you have any clothes that need to be washed, you can help yourself to the laundry room." He then looked at me and saw my almost confused expression and added, "Or you can leave them in a pile and I'll do them tonight."

"Thanks Bobby," I said softly.

"You can take the second floor," he told me. "I won't step foot up there for any reason while you're here."

We ate in silence. That was another thing I liked about Bobby. He didn't care if I never said a word, he wouldn't force me to.

When I was done, I returned to my truck to retrieve any and all clothes I had stored in there. It wasn't a large pile that I brought back into the house, but Bobby had another concern as I dropped them to the floor.

He picked up one of my shirts and asked, "Do they all look like this?"

I nodded. The fabric was thin and more than well worn.

"I don't know if it's going to survive the washing machine," he told me. Then, he said, "If they don't, I'm sure I have a few things around here you can take with you. They aren't pretty but, hell, I don't think any of us do pretty anymore."

I never had to do pretty. No one ever saw me. Until lately, and it was still bothering me.

I had nothing else to do downstairs, and Bobby was busy with my laundry, so I retired to the second floor. There was a guest bed made and I sat on it for a moment, contemplating whether or not to remove my boots. I laid back on the bed and was struck immediately with the memory of waking up in the Trickster's world.

I cried out and Bobby's voice echoed up the stairs from the floor below. "Laura?" he shouted to me. "Are you okay?"

"Y—" my voice broke. "Yes!" I called back. Then there was silence. All he need to know was that I was fine, and then he left me alone again.

I took my sawed-off in my hands and left the bed. I couldn't sleep on it. I couldn't even lay down on it. I looked about the sparse room and decided the only place I might feel comfortable was under the bed. That was where I slept.

I didn't need a pillow or a blanket. I hadn't had either one in years.

Bobby's house was quiet. It was the perfect place to fade back into non-existence. I watched the door until my eyes finally closed. It wasn't the best sleep, but it was a better one than I had had in a long time. I felt spoiled.

The sound of voices downstairs brought me awake. I knew them. Sam and Dean were here. Bobby hadn't been kidding about people showing up. Peeking out from under the bed, I found the early morning sun trying to peek over the horizon. I had slept longer than I had intended to. It hadn't even felt very long. I was still tired.

As I pushed myself out from under the bed, the boards squeaked beneath me and I paused. Downstairs, the voices stopped speaking. Then I heard Bobby say, "Hey, get your ass back here. It's Laura."

"Laura?" I heard Sam ask. "Laura Colt?"

"Lark's here?" Dean asked.

I moved to the door and headed toward the stairs. When I could see the Winchesters, Dean said, "Hey, you are here. 'Morning." It was such an amical greeting that I didn't know what to say.

"Still got that sawed-off glued to your hand, I see," Sam said and I looked down at the shotgun in my hand and then back to him blankly.

"Sorry, Laura," Bobby said to me, "I tried to keep them quiet so you could sleep."

That kind of consideration was new for me. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to react. I managed a shrug and descended the stairs.

"Leaving already?" Dean asked.

Bobby warned him, "Dean, Sam, kitchen. Now."

There was a sound in his voice that made me step back and grip my shotgun a little tighter. He then herded the Winchester boys out of the room and I made my way down the stairs. The fireplace was empty in Bobby's study, but there were books strewn around and I couldn't help but gaze upon them. I was never an avid reader. With time I could piece the words together, but aside from everyday occurrences, I had never had to read. It was a luxury that I had never been afforded.

I sat on the floor before the dark fireplace and set my shotgun beside me. I wasn't planning on leaving just yet unless Bobby wanted me gone. But I did want my clothes. A shower was a nice thought, too.

When the three returned to the room, Bobby took his seat behind his desk to look through books and Sam and Dean remained standing, and very quiet. I wondered what Bobby had told them.

"Just a second," Bobby mumbled as he looked through a few books. He looked tired. Had he been up all night?

I glanced over to the Winchester boys and Sam caught me looking at him. Cautiously, he asked, "How'd that… thing go? That you thought was a Trickster?"

Hunting I could talk about. "Not a Trickster," I replied. "Can't really say what the hell it was. But it wasn't a Trickster."

"Yeah?" Dean asked. "Any ideas?"

"Stronger than a Trickster, but no. I've got nothing." I wasn't a fan of lying, but it wasn't my place to speak of the archangel. His business was none of mine, and I didn't want it to be any of mine, either.

"You don't seem the type to back down," Dean commented and Bobby gave him a stern look.

"Dying isn't on my list of things to do this month," I said. Month. I didn't even know what month it was. What day was it? Tuesday? I honestly didn't even know when my birthday was. We never celebrated them, nor any holidays. Maybe dying was on my list of things this month, if I kept a list…

"So you didn't kill it?" Dean asked.

I shrugged. "Not this time," I said.

Bobby paused and asked, "You let it get away?"

"I don't exactly have a personal paranormal encyclopedia in my truck," I replied.

"She's calling you an encyclopedia," Dean said to Bobby. He smiled childishly.

I hadn't known the Winchesters and Bobby very long, less than a year, but I would have preferred them to my own family.

"Tell me about the Trickster you faced," I asked the brothers.

"Uh," Sam began unsure. "Well, it was on a college campus, and weird things were happening."

"Like a big-tent circus inside of a shack in the middle of the woods?" I sighed.

"Like aliens and alligators in the sewers," Dean replied.

"So we found the Trickster, who was a janitor at the school," Sam added, "and we stabbed him."

Bobby said with a smile, "After I had to help because these two little girls couldn't stop bickering amongst each other."

"Mixed company, Bobby," Dean said mockingly. "That's a bit sexist." He motioned towards me. I didn't get it.

Without a word, I stood up and headed back upstairs. I was still a little tired. Food could wait. A shower could wait. Bobby wasn't getting rid of me just yet, I had time to hide.

I never should have tried to sleep again. I was under the bed when the sunlight came through the window. Dreams are fickle things to begin with. Adding a stressful day upon that was asking for nightmares.

I woke up screaming.

"Lark!" I heard, followed by the pounding of boots up the stairs. "Lark!"

I was suddenly wide awake, holding my shotgun close as two pairs of feet entered the room. One ran to the window and looked out. "Where is she?" Sam asked.

"Demons?" Dean questioned.

"Will you two idjits get downstairs before she shoots your legs off?" Bobby shouted up at them.

Slowly they edged out of the room and shut the door behind them. I laid flat on the floor. My chest was heaving. My throat hurt. I laid there until everything had settled in my body. Bile had risen in my throat, but I choked it down. I swore I would not vomit in Bobby's house.

Crawling out from under the bed, I rose to my knees and glanced out the window. It was midafternoon. It was time to leave, whether I wanted to or not. I had never been the stationary type, and I had rested enough under the protection of another. More than I was comfortable doing.

I halted my crisis and pushed past it. I didn't have time to sit and think about my life. It didn't mean anything, and a dream was just a dream. Even if it was a bad dream.

When I walked downstairs, Sam and Dean were sitting with Bobby in his study. "Everything okay?" Bobby called to me when I stepped off the last step.

"Bad dream," I replied calmly.

"We thought something got you," Dean said.

I don't know what made me do it, but I cast Bobby a questioning look as I pointed to Dean. Bobby smiled back and said, "He thinks he's the knight in shining armor that has to save every damsel in distress."

"Damsel?" I asked and pointed to myself.

"Hardly," Dean scoffed and Sam elbowed him in the side. "What?"

"I need to get going," I said and the room went quiet.

"You don't want anything to eat before you go?" Bobby asked.

It was so kind to the point of being irritating. "I have to go," was all I said.

"Well I got your clothes cleaned and threw in some extras for you," Bobby told me as he left the room and returned with a stack of neatly folded clothes. I wasn't sure I had ever seen folded clothes before.

"I apologize for the… inconvenience," I said, offering him my newly learned phrase.

"It was nothing," he told me.

He had Sam and Dean carry my clothes to my truck and put them in the passenger seat as he made me a meal for the road. I was truly spoiled here. I had to leave.

I thanked Bobby before I left and even shook his hand, as awkward as it was. It wasn't the firmest of handshakes, but he could see my hesitation for even that amount of contact. "Call if you need anything," he told me.

I said nothing, only nodded and got in my truck. Bobby waved from the road as I left. I had never gotten a farewell before. I gave my truck a little more gas to make sure I got out of there quick. I wanted to believe Bobby would never hurt me, and my visit had only reassured me. My past, however, kept me distrusting. As for Sam and Dean? Small doses.

I drove until I hit the last gas station before I hit empty. I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I was running on fumes. The station was closed for the night, so I pulled in and locked the doors. I wouldn't sleep, I had slept all day and I wasn't tired, but I could sit and think until I could refill my tank in the morning. Hopefully it wasn't one of those places that was closed on random days that I needed them to be open.

I was staring at the ceiling of my truck, thinking about how I would need to find a new way to tack up the felt, or replace it altogether, when a tapping came at my driver's side window. I sat up quickly, about to draw my shotgun when I saw a man standing at the window. He waved and I rolled it down a little.

"Scuse me," he said, "did you break down?"

"Just stopping for the night," I said and yawned. I had to force the yawn. I wasn't tired. I was, however, surprised that this stranger could see me. Why weren't the sigils on my bones making me invisible? They should have been back to full strength with a day in hiding. "Thanks for your concern."

"Night!" he said and waved before leaving my truck. I rolled it up and watched him walk off back behind the gas station.

I didn't like that. I wanted to just lay back down and stare at the ceiling of my truck, but I didn't want to lose it once those nosey demons tried to get to me. Shotgun in hand, I got out and reached into the toolbox in the back of my truck. Extra salt rounds, a little bit of holy-oil, my machete for cutting off heads. I had never been fond of demons. No one ever really was.

Instead of waiting for them to come back and break my truck, I went after them. I wouldn't be left alone until I killed the things that were thinking of killing me. Story of my life. I put my shotgun on my shoulder and walked into the oncoming fray.

I walked behind the gas station and found no one there. Of course.

"Looking for me?" I heard and turned to see a shorter man dressed in a suit. He wasn't the same one that had been at my truck window.

"Not especially," I replied.

"Hunter?" he asked with an accent that wasn't from anywhere originally stateside.

"Occasionally," I said.

"I know most of them," he said. "Which one are you?"

"Which one are you?" I echoed him.

"My apologies," he said formally. "They call me Crowley."

"Ah," I replied and then added, "I don't know you."

"Would you like to?" he asked and stepped forward.

I waved my shotgun at him and he took the step back. "Not especially," I told him. "And I don't take kindly to forced persuasion."

"I like you," he mused aloud.

"I can't say I can return the sentiments."

Someone walked toward me and I shot without looking. Crowley smiled. I knew the height. There wasn't a head left. That demon would need to find a new host.

"Who's next?" I asked.

Crowley suddenly frowned and started looking around. He looked at my truck and shouted, "Find her!"

I stood very still. They had lost me just like that. I wondered if my sigils had come back to full strength when I was perceived to be in danger. Crowley left and his fellow demons stepped out to look for me. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

When they were all laying on the ground, I heard from behind me, "Just like that, huh?"

The sound sent chills up my spine. I didn't want to turn around. I had to have a plan if I turned around and I didn't. There was nothing I could do to kill the creature behind me, and I did not want to be at his mercy once again. I did not want to be on my knees asking for my life. What had even been the point of running away, and how had he found me?

"You know those were innocent people being used by those demons," he said and I wasn't quite sure what he was getting at. Were there quicker ways to kill a demon and save the meatsuit? I didn't know of any.

"Sentimentalities are what gets other people killed," I replied, my hand tightening on my shotgun.

"You're invisible," he said. "You have the time."

"Incase you haven't noticed," I said as I slowly turned to face him, that damned archangel. "When you're around, people tend to see me."

He was sitting on the edge of the back of my truck. There was no way I could trap him in holy-fire that way unless I wanted to lose my truck too. "And they can't see you now," he told me.

"I'm imagining it has something to do with you," I said. I didn't want to look at him, so I focused on his shoes. Very comfortable looking shoes. I was afraid that if I looked in his eyes, I would be back in that bedroom, or worse, my nightmare would become reality.

"You shouldn't be hanging around with demons," he told me and I wanted to shoot him again. "Especially right now. Crowley's looking for the last Colt."

Something in the way he said "last Colt" was very unsettling.

"For?" I asked suspiciously, my eyes narrowing on the black of his sneakers. They were dirty. Did he drag his feet when he walked?

"To make him a weapon," he told me.

I laughed, a rude, mocking sound. "I'm not a gunsmith," I blurted. "I couldn't help him anyway."

I could feel his eyes boring holes through me. He wasn't stupid. We were all gunsmiths. My sawed-off was the first one I ever made. If there was anything I knew, it was how to make a gun and how to shoot it. I didn't trust a weapon that wasn't forged at the homestead, preferably by my own hand. I could not, however, make a gun like the one Samuel Colt had. That "kill-all" art had been lost to the rest of us when his equipment had been hidden.

"Crowley has Samuel Colt's tools," he said and my attention snapped to his face.

"Bullshit!" I said. "There's no way! They're buried at the homestead!"

"Your uncle apparently took them when he left," the archangel told me.

I understood then why I was the last Colt. My uncle had been found and killed defending what he had taken. Perhaps Crowley didn't know he had needed him to build his fancy weapon.

Gabriel was looking me straight in the eye and all I managed to ask was, "How did you find me?"

"You were…" he said hesitantly and looked away from me. I wasn't sure what the gesture was. "…compromised, after our last encounter."

I didn't like that wording either. I felt like damaged goods now.

"Get off my truck," was all I managed to say. It wasn't like I could run. I was out of gas. I really didn't want to burn my truck with holy-fire.

"Lark," he said and I winced at the sound of my own name. He suddenly went quiet. Slowly, he slid off the side of my truck and took a step away from it. He still stood between me and the only thing I had in the world. "I'm not here to hurt you, Lark," he said softly. He had noticed my discomfort around him.

Without warning, he smacked the side of my truck and a loud bang issued from the old metal. My shotgun went up as I took a step back and he held up his hands.

"We need to talk," he said slowly. "Meet me tomorrow night at the bridge."

"No," I said. First, no matter what, I was not going to be alone with the archangel that could easily overpower me. Second, there was no way I could make it back to that bridge by tomorrow night. Unless I left at that second, and I had no gas for that old Chevy.

"You'll never run out of fuel again," he told me and then was gone in the whoosh of wings.

I ran around my truck, making sure he wasn't there, before I jumped in the cab. I had been sitting on empty when I rolled into that dark gas station to wait for morning. Taking a deep breath, I turned the key in the ignition and it roared to life. The gauge took a second, but it jumped all the way to full and stayed.

"What the hell is this angel getting at…?" I growled to myself.

I made the decision to go. I wasn't proud of it, but I wanted Samuel Colt's tools back. It was another thing that kept me safe. I would just have to take precautions so that I wouldn't be caught with my back against the wall again.

When night fell, I was standing in the middle of that bridge I had left the archangel Gabriel at. My truck was parked off the road and at a safe distance. I leaned back on the wooden rail and crossed my arms. In my hand was the trigger. If I was going to die, I would take him with me.

I heard him arrive before I saw him, and I looked down the bridge to where he walked towards me. Again I looked at his feet, concentrating. I wouldn't let him look into my mind.

"You have no reason to trust me," he said as he stood across the bridge. "I don't expect it. But I am trying to help."

"Why?"

He faltered. I looked up at his face and it betrayed his discomfort. He wasn't going to tell me. "The weapon," he began, "the one Crowley believes you can make with Samuel Colt's tools, can kill God. I am an angel of the Lord. I have to look out for the safety of Heaven and my father."

"Crowley can do whatever he wants to me," I shrugged. "I can't make that gun."

"I can't allow that," he said.

I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but I said, "Because I'm supposed to breed a new line of Colts?"

"Because you are a Colt," he replied. It occurred to me then that we were talking about Crowley killing me.

"You're a really shitty guardian angel, then," I muttered. I wasn't sure if he had heard me.

"I know," he sighed, and I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly. "Look," he said, "you can blow the bridge and kill us both with those holy-fire incendiary explosives that you set up, or you can let me help you. Together we can get back Samuel Colt's tools. You can hide them where no one else will ever know, and then we'll go our separate ways."

This was a true archangel asking me to save God. It was one of those decisions that would be weighed against my soul when I died to throw me into the fiery pits. I was going to hell anyway. I considered then getting the tools back to make the gun and go after the Devil myself. For what weapon could kill God should also be powerful enough to kill Lucifer. I scoffed to myself. I wasn't about to take on Lucifer. That would be stupid. I wasn't stupid.

I wasn't surprised in the least that he had known about the holy-fire incendiaries. It was probably why he had stood so far and gotten quickly to the point of our meeting.

"Ground rules," I said.

"With your sigils at strength, I can't find you if I lose sight of you," he told me.

"People will see me with you around," I said. "I can't get close to Crowley if they all know I'm coming."

Gabriel went quiet. He seemed to be thinking of a solid plan.

I came up with one quicker. "Bait," I said.

As soon as the word left my mouth, he said, "No."

"I meant me," I told him.

"Never."

"I'm sure I'm the only one that really knows what they're looking for," I said. "You make me visible. So either you're in and I'm bait, or you're out and it doesn't matter what you think because you can't be close to me without revealing me."

"I don't like this," he said and shook his head.

"Make the call," I said. I could handle Crowley either way, with or without Gabriel's help. I wasn't even sure he could help me at all. He was more likely to get in the way.

"Lark," he said softly. "Please don't put this decision on me. I will help you any way I can, but I refuse to be the cause of any injury to you again."

Again? I wondered if he meant that apple-pie bedroom where I bust my head open. The bedroom in my nightmares. In those dreams, I didn't get away. I couldn't get away.

"Lark?" he asked when I had gone silent. I was so far in my own thoughts, I almost didn't hear him. "I want to help. But I can't let you just throw yourself to crossroads demons."

"Then what do you suggest?" I asked.

"Lure them out? Make them come to you," he said. "Four female hunters have been killed in just the past two weeks while Crowley has been looking for you."

I hadn't heard of that. Why hadn't Bobby told me? Had he known?

"I'll give your plan a solid month," I said. "After that. I do it my way."

He didn't like my answer, but he agreed to it. Then, to my surprise, he said, "Now, your ground rules?"

I hesitated just a moment before saying, "Do not touch me. Ever. Two, when I'm asleep in the truck, you're not in the cab. And three, don't get in my way."

He nodded solemnly. It almost seemed if he was trying to think of loopholes. I would be carrying matches and holy-oil until I died.

I spent the first whole day driving. I wasn't sure where I was going, but with an unending supply of fuel in my tanks, there was no reason to stop. I was starting to think the only reason I ever stopped for anything was to gas-up.

I didn't realize I hadn't slept until I woke up and my truck was pulled over on the side of the road. Gabriel sat in the back of the truck, on top of my toolbox.

I jumped out of my truck and started pacing. I had no idea what had happened, and as I stood in front of my truck, I asked him.

He stood up on my toolbox and bent over the roof of my truck like a supermodel. I could hardly look at him. Then, very seriously, he said, "You fell asleep. I didn't want you to die, so I pulled the truck over."

Standing like that, I wasn't sure if I could be mad at him. I wasn't even mad at him in the first place, I only wanted to know what had happened. "Um… okay then," was all I could say.

"You look hungry," he said.

I didn't realize it until he said something. "A bit," I replied. Hunger pains were nothing. I had been ignoring them all my life.

"There's a little place up the road," he told me and jumped out the back of my truck.

Up the road meant another fifty miles to a rural town. And a little place, was obviously a popular place. I wasn't keen on going inside, but as I parked my truck, the archangel was quick to get out.

It was a ranch-type steakhouse with the wooden walls and the old equipment for decoration. Every town had at least one. It was the easiest thing to use since they just had to walk outside to the barn and pick up a rusty piece of metal and stick it to the wall. I didn't fault them one bit. Practicality.

The moment I walked in, I knew people saw me. I stood close to Gabriel as we waited for the hostess to come to us. "You look scared," he said.

"I'm not a fan of people," I replied. It was better to have the asshole I kind of knew at my back than have strangers at my back. Any one of them could have been a demon.

When the hostess came to us, she said to me, "Girly, you are skin and bones. You need to eat!"

I looked down at myself and had no idea what she was talking about. "Do I look emaciated?" I asked Gabriel and he smirked. I was lean muscle. I could run all night. Not to mention, I was wearing several layers of clothes. I wondered how the hostess could even see what I looked like.

There was a short wait until we got a table. I sat with my back to the wall, my eyes on the door. No one was coming into that building without me seeing them.

"Paranoid," Gabriel said.

"Still alive," I said.

I had never really been in a restaurant. I didn't know what to do. When the waitress asked me what I wanted to drink, I ran over all the scenarios in my head. She could poison my water if it came out of the tap. A soda could be poisoned as well. I didn't care for sodas, anyway.

And then Gabriel spoke. "Two beers," he said pointing at one of the menus, "leave the caps on."

The waitress seemed a little confused, but she shrugged and left. The archangel was catching on.

I looked at the menu and wasn't exactly sure what I was looking at. There were a lot of words. Fast food was easier. There were just pictures and numbers. If it looked good, I ate it. Often with fast food, it may have looked good, but it didn't taste like it. I still ate it.

Gabriel was looking at the desserts.

"I don't know what any of this is," I admitted after looking at different things, the pictures not making much sense.

He looked back at me with a furrowed brow and said, "Well, what do you like?"

I had never thought that would be one of the most difficult questions I had ever been asked. They always put the fanciest things in the pictures, and none of it looked appetizing.

I must have been quiet too long, for the waitress returned and asked what we wanted, and Gabriel ordered for me. I was not a fan of that. "What was that you told her?" I asked sharply.

"It's good," he said. "Trust me."

Beer on the table, I set the cap on the edge of the table and popped it off. Gabriel looked at me for a moment as I took a drink.

"It's a twist-top," he said as he unscrewed his.

I shrugged. I was as uncultured as they came, and he had been around since the beginning of time. I was suddenly a little wary of my own awkwardness. I glanced around and saw other women dressed in tighter clothes with their cleavage exposed. Short skirts and high boots. Their clothes were tiny compared to mine. I felt very out of place. Many of them were painted up and plucked to nothing. I was just this dirty woman in hand-me-down rags in their eyes.

"Don't do that," Gabriel said.

"Do what?" I asked

"Comparing yourself to everyone else."

I looked away from him. He had seen something in my face, or he had read my mind.

"Everyone should be different," he said.

"But I thought we were all made in God's image," I said as I took a drink.

Gabriel only smiled at me. It wasn't patronizing, but was more like he had liked what I had said.

I didn't know what God looked like, but I had always thought it strange that people celebrate individualism and yet we're all supposed to be the image of God. I had heard of schizophrenia, but that was ridiculous.

I smirked, thinking of a God with multiple personalities. I wasn't close to God anymore. And yet there I was having lunch with an angel of the Lord.

"Is this what you do?" I asked. "Come down to poke at the rest of us like bugs?"

I had said something wrong. Every glimmer of happiness and amusement was gone from his face. It might have hurt him less if someone had broken every bone in him. Or something equally as painful for angels.

I sat up straight and as far back in my chair as I could. Food came to the table, but I wasn't interested in it anymore. I was trying not to shoot him or make a run for it. If it couldn't be killed, the best bet was to run and hide. I was good at both of those. Very good.

The moment a strange dessert was set before him, his eyes lit up and he pushed back the offense he had taken and picked up a spoon.

Before me was a large burger with bacon and cheese and peppers and some kind of hot sauce. There were onions and tomatoes and the greenest pieces of lettuce I had ever seen.

My stomach growled away my apprehension. I didn't even know where to start. It was the largest burger I had ever seen. I picked up the knife on my plate and cut it in half. Manageable pieces.

The first bite was what I had imagined Heaven to be like. If my life flashed before my eyes before I died and I remembered that burger, I would die happy. It could have been the middle of the Apocalypse with the Four Horsemen killing everyone around me, and I would sit happy with a burger like that.

"Told you it was good," Gabriel said as I stuffed my face.

I finished my burger before he finished whatever it was he had in front of him. I was stuffed. I had never been so full. I had also never seen what he was eating. As I opened my second beer, I asked, "What is that?"

"You're joking," he said and then said, "You're not joking?"

"No," I replied. "It looks sweet…"

"It's ice cream," he told me. "You've never had ice cream?"

"I don't eat sweet things."

"By choice or because you've never had it?"

I had to think about that. It was true I had never had ice cream, or anything sweet for that matter. There was no use for candy, and it had always been an eat what you need to survive kind of lifestyle. Sweets never made a debut.

I shrugged. "Never had it, never needed it."

He gathered a little onto his spoon and then held it out to me. I was reluctant.

"Try it," he said.

Hesitantly, I took the spoon from his hand and put it in my mouth. It was almost unbearably cold and it was so sweet I couldn't help but make a face.

Gabriel took the spoon from my hand and said, "Maybe you're a sherbert kind of person…"

I didn't know what he was talking about.

As he dipped back into the ice cream, he said, "So no candy?"

"Never," I replied.

"We need to stop at the store."

If the angel wanted to go to the store, we would stop at the store. It wasn't like I had to be concerned about the gas.

When we were back on the road almost to the only gas station in town, I had to pull over.

"Lark?" Gabriel asked.

I wasn't feeling well. I got out of my truck and went to the ditch and puked until there was nothing left. The burger didn't taste as well coming up as it had going down. Everything was chunks and bile and my stomach still tried to heave when I was empty.

My legs shook from the exertion and I fell back to slide against my truck until my seat touched grass. Gabriel crouched beside me. He didn't touch me, only hovered. I couldn't see his face, I was staring at my feet as sweat began to dry on my skin.

I could go the rest of my life without eating a burger like that again.

"Right," he said as he sat beside me, at enough of a distance that I wasn't immediately put off by it. "Fast food and convenience store sandwiches from now on."


	4. Chapter 4: Gabriel

**(Author's Note: **Thanks again for joining me for another chapter. Please consider becoming my patron at **patreon(dot com)/mhwk**. Also please look up **MHWK Productions on Facebook** and give me a like. It's always appreciated. **)**

Chapter 4: Gabriel

Lark was not about to call it a day. I hadn't even been able to tell she wasn't feeling well after eating. She had seemed perfectly fine until she pulled onto the side of the road and jumped out of the truck.

She sat on the side of the road for nearly an hour before she took a deep breath and stood without warning. I just followed her and we were right back in the truck. She still didn't seem to be at full health, but she said nothing. When we stopped at the convenience store, she sat in the truck and I was the only one to get off. She cut the engine and set her forehead against the steering wheel.

If she wouldn't let me heal her, then there had to be some kind of human medicine she would be willing to try. When I was standing near the medicines for some time with a handful of candy bars, the cashier asked, "Your lady friend sick?"

I looked to him and he said, "You've got your hands full of candy and you're staring at aspirin like you're looking for a lifesaver."

Human things were strange. "That obvious?" I asked.

"What's her problem?" he asked.

"Vomiting after eating and overall not feeling well," I said.

He walked over to me and handed me three different things from the shelf.

I returned to Lark with a plastic bag and she barely turned her head to look at me. She groaned when I offered her the different things the clerk had recommended. I thought I had done something wrong until she grabbed the pink one, opened it, and took a drink like it was water.

We were off again, like nothing was wrong. She didn't play music, just let the sound of the engine fill the cab.

"I do have a question," I said. "How will we be luring these demons out if we're in the truck for the whole month?"

She didn't say a word as she pulled into a shady motel. The room she got was old and musty with two full-sized beds. I was standing in front of the truck when she walked in and left the door open. For a moment, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to follow her in, then I realized she wasn't coming back out. I crossed the threshold of the room and found her in the far bed with the pillow covering her face as she lay curled up on her side with her back to me. She was certainly not feeling well.

I closed and locked the door and then sat down on the extra bed. I didn't see us moving until she was better, so I found the remote for the television and turned it on. I couldn't help but be amused at the various ways humans humiliated each other in reality television. Either it was some physically harming game show, or overly dramatic groups of people trapped in one place.

"Turn it down…?" Lark said softly, her words a groan.

I hit the volume down and changed the channel. Doctors shows and bad movies. And then there was the typical late night programing available in a seedy hotel. I wasn't against watching it, but I wasn't going to watch it with Lark in the room.

"Really?" she grumbled when she heard the softcore music.

I turned it off and lay back on the bed. The quiet was better for her recovery since she wouldn't let me help. It would have been easier.

I felt trapped in that quiet room, but I wouldn't leave her side. The last Colt was in my care, and even if we retrieved Samuel Colt's tools, I had a lot to make up for. Raphael had proclaimed it hunting season on Lark to retrieve Samuel Colt's effects. He was planning to be much more forceful in his attempt to make her cooperate. I could keep her safe. I had to. Now, I only had to convince her that I was worth keeping around, and around was the last place she wanted me.

I needed to be compliant. No angel would dare serve a human like I was trying to do. I would pay for it later.

In the early morning hours, I listened to the water run in the bathroom sink. Listened to it splash on a tired face. Lark stepped out of the room long enough to retrieve a set of clothes and then she returned to shower. I turned the television back on. The quiet she surrounded herself with was deafening. It was maddening.

An hour later, she left the bathroom fully dressed, her red hair tied over her shoulder in a long braid. She was wearing her long black skirt, a green blouse, and a short denim jacket, the exact ensemble she had worn when we had first met. Lark had always known how to dress to fit in with a crowd. She always knew how to look like she belonged in a world that didn't belong to a hunter. And yet she elected to live on the fringes and dress however she wanted, without comparing herself to anyone else. I liked that about her. A truly individual soul.

She had easily made me think she was harmless, and she could have made anyone else think the same, too.

Sitting on her bed, she pulled on a pair of shiny black boots and laced them up.

"Where are you off to looking all dolled up?" I asked.

"Trying to find demons," she replied.

She still sounded tired. Her outfit intrigued me. Dressing nice and calling herself demon bait. I was curious as to how she would act out in the real world. Like she had in the circus? That was an entirely different woman. And I wasn't sure she could do it after our misunderstanding. People weren't that strong.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked. She seemed skeptical at my compliance.

"Keep an eye out," was all she told me.

I changed the appearance of my vessel and followed her into town. She didn't even look the same as she had at the restaurant. No one would notice. She didn't even hold herself the same way.

There was a sway in her step as her heels clicked across the road. She was confident, with a content smile on her face. In a cafe, she sat down with a glass of iced tea and she looked over the newspaper.

It wasn't long before a man asked to sit with her, and she welcomed him to her table like an old friend. She giggled and smiled and played with her hair. And as he had coffee with her, he tried to touch her hand when they spoke. She let him.

She played her part so well, I wouldn't have recognized her. Even playing in the shadows her whole life, she knew how to be invisible even when she wasn't. Just another woman. A pretty face.

Suddenly, she looked at the watch on her wrist and got out of her seat. He rose with her and they left the cafe. He placed a hand on her shoulder as he pointed into town. Then she nodded and they waved goodbye. From there, she went shopping. There was this amazing, clueless air to her. She wanted people to think she was lost or simpleminded. It was working. She was approached by nearly everyone she passed. She was a magnet. Her smile was electric.

I reminded myself it wasn't real. This wasn't the real Lark Colt. And right then, in the midst of all that talking and touching, the real Lark wanted to run. She was miserable when she smiled like that. Her skin crawled when she was touched by another human.

I had never met a human so backwards before. I never wanted to see that smile, that empty complacency, on her face again. Was this how she viewed everyone she shared the world with?

With bags in hand, she returned to the hotel. I met her there in my vessel's true form as she hung up clothes and then collapsed on her bed once again.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Pink one…" she muttered.

I assumed she meant the medicine I had given her the day before and I took that to her again. She took a drink and set it on the nightstand. Then she set the alarm to give her four hours, and she put the pillow back over her head.

Sitting on my bed, I watched her lay there. Had I killed the last Colt with a Monster Burger?

There was a marathon on t.v. about an attractive doctor. I watched it silently until her alarm went off. She silenced it with a swift hand and then left the bed with sluggish steps. She rubbed her forehead as she grabbed a garment off the hanger and walked into the bathroom.

She was in there for nearly an hour, but when she stepped back out, I couldn't keep my mouth closed.

Her long red hair had been tied back in a messy bun and held up with a rhinestoned clip. Her dark green dress was form-fitting and stopped mid-thigh. She still wore her short denim jacket. I couldn't help but look at her long legs, pale and smooth. And then her shiny black boots with a little heel made her just a bit taller.

The dress was too tight to hide a weapon. I noticed quickly that it was very tight, leaving little to the imagination. One smooth silhouette. Then I asked, "Are you wearing underwear?" I stumbled over my words. "Protection! I mean a gun!"

She looked at me with red lips and a beautifully painted face and said, "No." She lifted a tiny purse and pulled out a silver knife, salt, matches, and a little bottle of holy water.

"You're just going to piss of a demon like that," I told her.

"I'm trusting you, Gabriel," she said and the words hit me like a weight. I wasn't sure I had ever had so much responsibility before. This one night could make or break the future of our working relationship. I had to keep her safe.

I changed the appearance of my vessel and arrived at the bar nearly an hour after she did. It was the kind of place where locals showed up only to see if anyone new had arrived in town. I had desperate women buying me drinks the moment I stepped through the door. And Lark was the belle of the ball, attracting more attention than I knew she wanted. The man that she had spoken to at the cafe was trying to teach her to play pool by standing too close. He wasn't even that good.

"What's so special about her?" I heard to my right and glanced over to see one of the locals standing beside me.

"Redheads," I muttered and shrugged.

She chuckled, "Not your type?"

"Can't take them anywhere," I said roughly, "They burn in the sun."

She found that amusing and offered me her hand. "Angela," she said.

I shook her hand and replied, "John." It was easiest name to throw out there. There were more Johns than anyone else.

If there ever was a thing as over-sharing, that's what Angela did. She talked about her life and her ex-husband, and I tried to remain interested as I kept an eye on Lark, but there was only so much negativity I could consume in one sitting. It was conversations with Lucifer all over again. Whining about everything. At least she wasn't about to kill anyone over it.

I raised my beer bottle and said, "To health and future happiness."

"Here here!" she smiled.

For the next two hours, Angela tried to get me to go home with her. When that wasn't working, she decided to keep buying me alcohol in the attempts to change my mind.

Lark came up to the bar and ordered a Jack and Coke. She looked to me and smiled. I didn't think she knew who I was, but the moment she said, "Hi," quite friendly, Angela was on the defensive.

"Hi Red," she said bitterly.

"Christie," she said and offered her hand. Angela just stared at it, so I shook it instead.

"John," I said.

"Friendly little town you've got here," she said and cast a glance to Angela as she took a drink. I wasn't sure if it was a slight at the woman beside me for only having one person to talk to. I didn't think Lark was that petty. The real Lark wasn't, but I wasn't so sure about this Christie.

The man she had been chatting with then came back to the bar and steered her away. I was hoping Lark remembered she was supposed to be looking for demons and not on a date. Then I saw him lean in to kiss her and she smiled into her glass as she kept it at her lips.

"He's trying a little hard, you think?" Angela asked me. Pot calling the kettle black.

"It's a little sad," I replied.

"I know, right?" she added.

When the man tried to do it again, another stopped him. "Hey, buddy, why don't you lay off a little. Give the lady a break, she hardly knows you."

"Mind your own business," said the man from the cafe.

The bartender called out, "Take it outside!"

It dawned on me then that there really was a reason Lark avoided contact with people. Not that she had some kind of superpower that attracted them, but that she had seen only the terrible ways they treated one another. The ways they imposed their strength on one they considered weaker and tried to force or control one another. The way the man was trying to do with her. She had only seen the want in others, and none of the give. Everyone wanted something from her. And I was no different.

The two men seemed to calm down, and then the one from the cafe left with his hands balled into fists. With a simple greeting, it started all over again. This new man only talked. It was like the good cop, bad cop, routine that was in every police drama.

Slowly everyone left and the bar was closed at two in the morning. Lark went back to the room and I met her there in my vessel's natural appearance. I walked into the hotel to see her throwing shoes in the closet with anger that I wasn't used to seeing in her. She immediately noticed I was there and retreated to the bathroom again.

The shower came on and I went back to watching television. Steam came from under the cracks in the bathroom door. I hoped she wasn't cooking herself alive.

The water ran for an hour and a half, and then it was silence for an hour more. The door then opened a crack as I was laying on my bed staring at the ceiling and I heard, "Gabriel?" in a voice so unsure that I was hesitant to move.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"I… forgot a towel."

I left my bed and retrieved a large one from the rack beside the closet. Then I turned my back and walked backward until she could reach through the door and take it. It would take another thirty minutes, at five in the morning, to admit that she had forgotten to take her clothes in with her as well.

I just took her the bag from her truck.

Tattered jeans and a worn white shirt with green sleeves. Then she went to lay down, took another drink from the bottle of pink medicine, and covered her head with her pillow.

I had to ask. "Lark?"

"Hm?" was the answer I got.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but humans aren't supposed to exist on alcohol and Pepto-Bismol, right?"

"No…" she grumbled.

"Want me to get something?"

"No."

I sat on my bed and watched her curl upon herself. She didn't want to eat. She refused anytime I tried to help on my own. "What happened?" I asked.

"It was just the first day," she muttered. "Don't rush me."

"No," I said and shook my head. "To you? To your family?"

She lay very still and gave me no answer. She trusted me enough to watch her back when it came to luring in demons, but not when it came to the history of the Colt lineage. Something had gone terribly wrong. I could feel it.

We left in the morning and barhopped in little towns for a week straight. After every bar, Lark would sit in a hot shower and burn the fingerprints of strangers from her skin. She didn't forget her towel or her clothes after that first time.

"I'm not sure we're getting anything," I mentioned at breakfast in a small diner one morning.

She handed me the local newspaper and pointed to the headline on the front page. There was a string of murders in the direction we were going. Something was following us, trading body after body to look a little different and get a little closer. I hadn't been able to tell one person from another.

"Did you notice?" I asked.

She shrugged. If she had, she wasn't mentioning it. After a few days of roiling indigestion, Lark's appetite was still low.

"Feeling any better?" I asked when she listlessly stirred her bowl of soup with little intention of eating it.

"I don't want this…" she said, her head in her hand.

I wondered if this was how it felt to be human, continuously confused about the person sitting across the table from me. "Trade?" I asked and she looked at me with an expression that displayed exactly how I felt.

I didn't have to eat to survive, but she did. And even if she was eating chocolate cake and strawberries, it was better than nothing.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Chocolate cake?"

"Is that the stuff they serve at birthday parties?" she asked.

"I suppose," I replied. "Did you have it any of yours?"

I know I had said something wrong by the way she scoffed. "No," she said. "I can't even tell you how many years I've been alive."

I stared at her. "I thought birthdays were really important," I said.

She shrugged. "Never had one," she said. "We were always on the move, and afterward, it was just me. There's rarely a reason to pay attention to the time when you're invisible."

I passed my cake to her. "Try it."

She took my fork and took a tiny bite. "Too sweet," she said and passed it back.

"What did you eat growing up?" I blurted, "Dirt?"

"Only during Lent," she told me. There was no humor in her voice.

I pointed to her soup and she passed it to me. I wasn't sure what it was supposed to taste like, but it wasn't good. "Bland," I told her passing it back.

"At least there's something we can agree on," she said, stirring the bowl again.

Eventually, she set it aside relatively untouched. I was curious if she was ordering food to humor me, since afterward, we stopped at a gas station and she found herself an unappealing sandwich.

"That doesn't look very good," I mentioned to her when she got back into the cab.

"Full of and salmonella," she replied.

"That tastes good?"

"Not at all."

At the hotel that night, I turned on the television and Lark laid down on her bed. This time, she didn't cover her face, she turned toward the box and asked, "What're you watching?"

"Ridiculous game shows," I replied.

"I'm staying in tonight," she told me.

I wasn't about to tell her otherwise. If she wasn't driving, she was out pretending to care about talking to people. She was only human. She had to sleep at some point.

"I'll give you some quiet," I told her and set the remote beside her before leaving the room. I was certain she didn't want me in there while she was actually trying to regain some semblance of peace. She was used to being alone, and that was where her comfort lie.

I spent the night laying in the back of her truck, staring up at the stars and thinking about home. I had been gone for so long, and yet there was still chaos. My brothers were still not done fighting. Lucifer was imprisoned until the time of the Apocalypse. Heaven, Earth, and Hell were all in turmoil. All I had ever wanted was laughter. I missed laughter. I missed my father. Where had he gone?

"Must be really boring for you," I heard at the break of dawn.

Lark stood at the driver's side of the truck bed and looked down at me.

"The millions of things you could be doing, and you're tailing a person that requires sleep," she said. A yawn escaped her and she covered her mouth and looked away.

"We're after the same thing," I said.

"I sure hope so," she replied and tapped her hand on the side of the truck before walking back inside.

She still doubted me. I was starting to understand that I could do everything in my power and plead on my knees, and she would not be interested in anything I had to offer. We were still at square one, humoring me until the month's end. I had no doubt she would run away to take on Crowley on her own.

That night, she was dressed up again. I showed up at the local bar after her and no one noticed I was even there. All eyes were on her again, and yet another person was trying to teach her how to play pool. He was also very bad at it, and just using it as an excuse to touch her.

About an hour after I arrived, she excused herself to the bathroom. She wasn't looking for me, so I didn't move from my seat at the bar. She took her time, making those men wait. It was easy to see what kind of thoughts were on their minds. When she walked back into the room, she was wiping at a dirt mark on the lap of her dark dress. I barely caught her saying, "Those bathrooms are filthy," as she strode past me. I didn't think she was talking to me. She didn't even know who I was with the new face I had chosen for my vessel.

Several beers later, at midnight, one particular man was too close to her. When he spoke, there was a thin gap between their bodies. He held her hands in his and backed her up against the pool table. Lark kept smiling. Her words ended with her tongue touching her red lips. She ran her finger down the buttons of his shirt and then led him away from his friends.

They whooped and hollered as she took him out the back of the bar and into the alley.

I was supposed to follow her. I was supposed to keep her safe. As soon as I could, I left. I kept my distance in the alley as he kissed her neck and held her close, and she made little noises of pleasure that struck me from where I stood. I suddenly wasn't sure what I was doing out there. I stepped back, knowing I should just go to the hotel and wait for her to return.

"What the hell?" echoed down the alley and I looked up to see the man pushing at air.

Lark had stepped back. The hunter was showing in her. Her blue eyes were sharp, nothing like the easy romantic that had been inside.

I had been wrong.

"You're a hunter?" the man growled.

She shrugged. "I'm looking for someone," she said. "And you're going to tell me where he is."

"And why would I do that?" the demon asked.

Lark stepped over and pulled herself on top of a dumpster. She didn't say anything, only watched the demon for a moment.

He looked down and kicked around some of the trash around him so that he could see the trap she had drawn for him. "You bitch," he spat.

Lark sighed and shook her head. She was very calm and she only waited patiently for him to realize she had nowhere important to be.

"What do you want?" he finally growled.

"Crowley."

"Crowley?" he laughed, "A crossroads demon? Just go to a crossroads and ask."

"Location," she said a little sharper.

"What do you want from him?" he asked.

Reaching into her little purse, Lark pulled out the little vial of holy water.

"That's all you've got?" he asked.

"It's not about what you've got, Friend," she said, "It's all about how you use it."

The demon laughed, long and loud. And then Lark began reciting a spell. The demon dropped to his hands and knees an an agonized groan. She wasn't exorcising the demon from the body he had possessed. I didn't know what the spell was. I had never heard it before.

The demon wasn't laughing anymore. He looked up at her and she smirked back down at him and said, "Howdy."

"What are you?" he spat.

"Just a traveler looking for directions," she replied casually as she slid down from the dumpster. She opened the vial of holy water and let the smallest drop fall on his head. He hissed, but he couldn't move.

"Crowley," she said.

"I don't know."

Another drop. Another growling hiss.

"I don't know!" he said again.

She knelt down in front of him and I heard her knife flip open. She didn't say a word and I couldn't see what she was doing from where I stood, but he didn't like it.

"Alright!" he shouted. "Alright! Just stop! There's an old mohair shipping warehouse on the Mississippi! He's turned it into his hideout. I can't take it anymore! Please stop!"

Lark said, "Thanks," and said a spell that allowed him to stand.

When he was on his feet, he looked down at the trap that bound him and asked, "Are you going to let me go?"

"I'll do you one better," she said, "I'll send you home."

She exorcised the demon and rushed forward to catch the man's body before it struck the ground. She lay him carefully on the pavement and checked his pulse. "Still alive," she said.

Heaving a sigh, she sat back on the alley road and hung her head. She looked tired.

I returned my vessel to his true appearance and approached her. "Lark?" I asked and she glanced up to me.

"Is he going to live?" she asked.

I looked at the man and ran my hand over his face. He would live, but he would remember the demon had been inside of him.

I nodded to Lark and she said, "Good. I'd hate to have gone through all that extra work for him to die." I wasn't sure what she'd meant.

She rose to her feet and stumble to the side before catching the dumpster and holding herself up. "Aaaand, bed time," she muttered to herself as she forced her feet beneath her.

I offered to help, but again she turned me down, this time with the wave of a hand. The walk back to the hotel room was incredibly slow. She ran out of breath or had to sit down. She was paler than usual, and the whites of her eyes showed as if she were in shock.

She stepped into the room and didn't even make it to the bed before she collapsed to the floor. I could have caught her in time, but I wasn't sure what to do and I let her fall. She had stated her ground rules. I could have made an exception. What I did instead was scoot a pillow beneath her head and toss a blanket over her. Then I turned on the television and tried to keep my attention elsewhere.

I could still see her with that man, that demon. The soft gasps she made echoed in my head and I turned away from her sleeping figure. She was going to scrub her skin in the morning until she bled, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't make myself stop thinking about it.

Tomorrow, I would need a night off.


	5. Chapter 5: Lark

Chapter 5: Lark

I awoke on the floor, my head throbbing. It wasn't just the sound of softcore porn with the volume turned low, but I was sure I had hit something on my way down. The moment I rolled over, Gabriel changed the channel. Game shows. I never thought an angel would be so enthralled with pornography, but everyone had their thing. I wasn't in any position to judge.

"Morning, Sunshine," Gabriel said as I sat up.

I hadn't had any dreams, but I woke up feeling disgusting. I knew what had happened, what I had let happen. I could cut my skin off and I still wouldn't have felt any better. The problems with being seen. I looked down at my clothes. I wanted to burn them.

At least with some kind of information I could make something of it. I needed to get Samuel Colts tools so they could never be used against me again. I didn't want to be shackled to the archangel much longer. He had shared my room too long and my nerves were more than shot. I had expected to be attacked the first night. The worry had made me nauseous. I was more prepared to run for my life than anything else. I hadn't wanted to eat.

I had half a mind to destroy Samuel Colts gadgets the moment I got my hands on them. All they had done was bring me problems.

"Lark?" Gabriel asked and I glanced back to him.

There was a look on his face that I couldn't read. It was the same as any other look he gave me. I hated when he said my name. I had never heard it so much in my life. "You need a night off, too?" I sighed.

He didn't say anything.

"I'll be fine. You can go," I told him. I didn't know if he had been waiting for my approval of him to leave my side, but I couldn't have been happier for him to stand and walk to the door.

"Don't leave without me," he said as he opened the door.

I waved halfheartedly as he left. I wouldn't leave without him. I couldn't. The spell I had used on the demon the night before had left me tired. I was going to have trouble standing.

Once upon a time, someone in my bloodline had thought to tap into the power in the Enochian spell that was carved in our bones and use it in the field. Hunting demons was easier when we could force them to sit and stay like good little dogs. My father and my brothers had been quite handy with our family spells. Me, not so much. I was wiped out by kicking one demon while he was already down. I was honestly surprised I had made it back to the room.

I laid back down on the floor. I just wasn't strong enough to get up. I lay with my head on my pillow and watched t.v. from where I was. I had never watched so much television before, and throughout the day, the overdone crime dramas were becoming a quick favorite.

At some point, I had fallen asleep. The floor was comfortable, there was no one else around, and aside from the white noise from the television, all was quiet. And then there was a voice.

"I heard you were looking for me." Crowley. No one spoke like Crowley. That certain way his mouth formed his words. Like a velvet blanket. I hated velvet.

I opened my eyes and found myself staring back up at the demon. I tried to wiggle my toes under the blanket, tried to move my legs but I was still down for the count. It had been a long time since I had used any of the spells my family had created. I didn't care for them. Now, staring up at a demon from the flat of my back, I remembered why.

"Aren't you supposed the be somewhere on the Mississippi?" I asked.

"Aren't you supposed to be a little more careful with how quickly you extract information from a poor source?" he replied.

I hadn't really cared what kind of information I had gotten from the demon. I was chasing bad leads for Gabriel's sake. A month on his terms was more than I could endure.

Crowley didn't wait for me to answer his question. Instead, he sat down at the foot of Gabriel's bed and hovered over me. "So who are you?" he asked, "Other than the famous disappearing woman. You had me looking quite foolish out there."

"I don't give my name out to strangers," I replied with a smile. Poking a crossroads demon, or any demon, with a stick, was not in my best interest, but there was nothing I could do. I was at Crowley's mercy, or lack thereof.

"Is that so?" he asked. "Perhaps we can become better acquainted."

I muttered, "I'd rather set myself on fire."

"Possession is always an option to learning your darkest secrets, dearie."

I laughed. "I would love to see you try!"

I didn't need a possession ward like the Winchesters. The scribbling on my bones was a natural deterrent. The last demon that had tried never made it back to Hell. He just burned.

"If you're going to try to torture information out of me," I told him, "I'm going to need some help getting up. If not, I would very much like to get back to sleep if you don't mind."

"Cheeky," he said. "You're in luck that I'm not in the habit of wasting time right now. Unless you know where I can find the last child of Samuel Colt."

I blurted, "There are still Colts?"

He growled at me and then he left. I had a feeling he'd been getting that response quite a bit lately. My response had been exactly what the Winchester boys had said to me when I had finally introduced myself. Their father had said the same.

As quickly as Crowley had come, he was gone, and a surge of adrenaline pumped through my veins. I was on my feet, packing up my room and throwing everything into the cab of the truck. Clothes, shoes, guns. I wasn't being neat about it.

I closed the door to the room and went to my truck with every intention of driving out of town and not looking back. Then I remembered Gabriel. I couldn't leave him behind, not because I cared about him. I was certain he could take care of himself. But if Crowley discovered who I was and Gabriel was trying to find out where I had gone, he could lead him straight to me.

I looked around. Gabriel was nowhere in sight. I didn't know how to reach him. My heart was in my throat and I didn't know what to do. Then I thought: pray. My prayers had never been answered before. It was one of the reasons I had stopped praying. Now, it was the only thing I could think that might work.

"Gabriel," I said softly, setting my forehead against the window of my driver's side door. "Gabriel, I need you here. Please."

"What's wrong?" I heard, and turned to see Gabriel standing nearby. He seemed flustered and almost like he was out of breath.

"We have to go," I told him. "Now."

He didn't question me, just got in the truck and I drove us out of town. I tried to keep an eye on my speed, but my foot was glued to the pedal.

"What happened?" Gabriel finally asked.

"Crowley showed up at the hotel."

"For what?" he asked.

"For tea!" I replied sharply. I hit the steering wheel. "He didn't realize it was me he's looking for and took off, but damn it he's not in friggin' Mississippi!"

"Where are we going?" he asked, not raising to my level of panic.

"Sioux Falls, South Dakota," I said. "Where I'm going to get some advice and you're not going to show your face because I don't want to explain why I've got a stranger in my truck."

"I thought we were friends," he said.

I didn't give him a response. He was a liability. I needed help. Nothing had ever been hunting me before. I had never had another person in my cab, let alone an angel. My world was changing. Everything could see me. Crowley could find me.

But what would Bobby be able to do? If Crowley found me, I'd just be dragging him and the Winchesters into the line of fire.

"Truck's slowing down…" Gabriel commented.

I had been slowing down. I pulled over and stopped on the side of the road.

"Lark?"

What the hell was I doing? Everything inside of me screamed to lose the angel and hide. I turned off my truck and left the keys in the ignition. I shut everything down and curled up in my seat before setting my head against my knees.

I was still in my black dress, prettied up from the night before. I couldn't do anything. This was out of my league, playing with angels and being hunted by demons.

"No South Dakota?" Gabriel asked.

I knew I had to go to Bobby. I had to ask for help from him and the Winchesters. I needed a trap, an idea, something to keep me alive and to get Samuel Colt's tools away from Crowley. I didn't care if I had to be bait, I just wanted to know I would be able to get out. Gabriel couldn't blow his cover. I doubted he would anyway.

Taking a slow breath, I set my feet back in the floor and said, "South Dakota," and turned on the truck. I would give Bobby, Sam, and Dean a choice. If they weren't willing to help, I wasn't about to make them. I would figure it out myself if I had to, like always. I didn't want to rely on them again.


	6. Chapter 6: Gabriel

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Chapter 6: Gabriel

When I had left the hotel, leaving Lark to take in a moment of peace, I had to clear my head. I had to get away from the hunter. I walked away from the hotel and stepped into my own reality. I created a bubble, a new world where nothing mattered. A shadow reality.

I stepped into a club and the stage was full of blondes and brunettes moving through the strobe lights to sultry music. A pretty little blonde, I called her Destany, stepped off the stage and walked over to me.

She slid a finger down my chest and said, "It's about time you came back. We missed you."

And then Amber Rose came down, my favorite brunette, the one I had come for. She stole me away from Destany and took me into the back. I had been locked in that truck too long.

Amber Rose was hardly wearing anything at all. From her long legs to her slim waist. Her skin was smooth and I could already taste the sweet lotion she rubbed over her body.

She ran her hands up my chest, pushing my jacket from my shoulders. I let it fall. I had been wearing it since I had met Lark. She turned me and pushed me to the leather couch before she straddled my lap. I missed the sensations of touch.

"Really?" I heard. "This is what you ran off to do?"

I looked around, I knew that voice.

"Jeeze, look at those legs!"

I looked to my left and further down the couch sat Lark, staring at the stripper on my lap. She was dressed in her normal tattered clothes and layered jackets.

"So… that's what gets you up? Brunettes with large…" she held her hands before her own smallish chest and said, "personality."

"You're not supposed to be here," I told her as Amber Rose pulled my shirt over my head.

"Damn, Gabe. I'm not here. Not the real me anyway. The real me is asleep on a hotel floor. Where you left me." She narrowed her eyes accusingly. "I am just a figment of your twisted imagination. I mean really? You can't stop thinking about me when you've got yourself halfway up… what'd you call this one?"

"Amber Rose…" I said slowly as the woman on my lap touched soft lips to my neck. I shuddered.

"Really?" Lark laughed. "Damn! That's just as bad as Destinee Diamond! Come on, Gabe, get a little original with your stripper names."

"You need to go," I said and with a wave of my hand, she disappeared. My attention was all for Amber Rose as she nipped at my chest. My breath caught in my throat. My muscles tensed as she knelt between my legs.

"Isn't lust one of those seven deadly sins?" Lark was back. She sat further down the couch and smiled back at me.

I wordlessly groaned in annoyance.

"Don't give me that," she said. "I wouldn't be here in Angel-Reality Land if you didn't want me here. Apparently I've got a damn season pass."

Again I waved my hand and she disappeared.

Amber Rose kissed a trail down my chest, down my stomach. Her painted fingernails played with the button of my pants.

"Are you even enjoying yourself?" Lark asked, back in her place on the couch.

"Damn it Lark!" I shouted.

Everything went dark. Amber Rose was gone. The couch was gone. I was dressed again and standing in darkness. Lark was only a few short feet before me with her arms crossed below her breasts. "Technically," she said, "whatever you did with Miss Amber Rose, you would just be screwing yourself. Or… mental masturbation? Physical masturbation? Is that allowed? What would your father say?"

I waved my hand and she vanished, and with it the dark. I was suddenly back in that old Chevy. There was nothing ahead of us but road and dry grass. I glanced over to see Lark behind the wheel. She steered with her left hand and after a moment, looked back at me.

"Your choice?" she asked. "I thought you wanted out of my truck."

I sat back in the seat and propped my feet in the dash.

"Might be your dream, but it's still my truck," she told me. "Feet off!"

I put my feet back in the floor.

"Pout if you want, Gabe, you're the one torturing yourself here," she said. "I mean really, I'm just saying things you already know."

"Torturing myself?" I asked abruptly.

"Yes," she said. "You're pent up and frustrated as any angel could be in a human, male vessel." She looked me up and down and said, "A very nice vessel I might add."

"What're you saying?" I asked.

"You take the day off to get your own space," she said, "and then you create your own strip club and have me crash your happy fun-time? Come on, Gabe. Don't make me spell it out for you."

"You?" I asked

She looked at me out the corner of her eye and suddenly started singing Hey Jude by the Beatles. I liked that song. She took a break in the song and told me. "Might as well do it now. Just don't tell the real me or she'll think you've created a sex puppet in her image."

It was difficult listening to her talk with the ease that the real Lark didn't have. I doubted the real Lark would ever speak to me about sex in any capacity. With the way she scrubbed her skin, she wasn't planning on engaging with anyone.

In a moment of weakness that I had sought companionship with my own creation, only Lark came to mind and crashed my moment with my own thoughts.

"Get it out of the way, Gabriel," she said. "Then maybe after the mystery is gone, I won't be here to crash your party next time."

"Pull over," I said.

"Yes!" she said and pumped her fist.

The old Chevy Scotsdale pulled over onto the side of the road and I got out of the cab. When I turned around to face what had been an expanse of prairie grasses, it was a bedroom. The blankets were black and silken. The pillows were red.

Lark grabbed my wrist and pulled me around to her. She was smiling, a look that gave me the feeling that my heart had jumped into my throat. She put her hands in my hair as she drew my lips to hers. She didn't smell sweet like Amber Rose, but like dirt and gunpowder, and for some reason, that made me act.

I wrapped my arms around her and brought her body closer to mine. She felt the way she had looked. Firm muscles under pale skin.

She ran her hands down my arms and up my shirt. Her touch was cold against my skin but I ached for it. Since I had joined her in that 1985 Chevy, there had been nothing but distance. I missed the closeness of another body, a human body. I had stayed on Earth for humans. Their love and ingenuity. They were intriguing in every way.

Clothes were left on a dark floor and she pulled me atop her, my lips still with hers. I didn't want to let go. There were freckles. Her hands were cold but the rest of her body was warm and welcoming as I took her on that soft bed. The moans of pleasure she had once given to the demon in an alleyway were now mine and I reveled in the moment.

"Gabriel." My name on her lips.

"Gabriel, I need you here."

That wasn't the Lark before me. It was the one I had left in the hotel.

"Please."

My world fell to pieces. I let it all go and returned to her. I didn't understand why she had prayed for me. I never thought she would ever do such a thing. When I arrived, she was standing by her truck with her head bowed.

"What's wrong?" I asked, but when she looked at me with the blue eyes I had only seen moments before, I could hardly stand to look at her. I felt guilty.

We were back in the truck and on the road. Crowley had made a housecall. Lark was on edge. She was back in her own head after telling me. Quiet. Her hands tight on the wheel. Her teeth were clenched tight enough that I could see the muscles in her jaw.

She must have been paying more attention to the thoughts in her head than actually driving to South Dakota and I looked out the front and found us slowing down. When I mentioned it to her, she just pulled over.

I looked out my window. I was more than certain she had changed her mind about me following her and was going to tell me to leave, but instead, she shut the truck down entirely and pulled her legs into the seat. She wasn't going to disappear even though she seemed like she wanted to. I kept my attention off of her and on the road.

Lark had pulled over like her reflection in my reality had, yet this was in no way the same. The real Lark wanted to be left alone. If I had never come to her concerning Samuel Colt's missing items, she wouldn't have noticed. She wouldn't have cared. And most of all, she would still be out in the world by herself. Alone and invisible.

I was hoping we were still going to South Dakota. She wouldn't admit it, but she had a friend there.

There was uncertainty in her eyes when she finally started the truck again. I had known before that she wasn't the type to ask for help, but now I truly understood, if only a little, how rarely she relied on others. Crowley's appearance had upset her enough to pray to me. I had to show her I was worth that trust.

She pulled her truck into a junkyard late that night and she turned to me. "Out of sight," she said as she got out of the truck. I left, but I would be watching as close as I could. I wasn't going to get distracted by my own desires this time. I would remain out of sight, but I would be her guardian angel.

It was dark as she walked up to the back door and knocked. There was silence before the light above her came on and the door opened.

Bobby Singer looked her from her heeled boots to her done up hair and said, "Girl, what the hell'd you get yourself into?"

Lark said nothing, only waited to be let inside. She looked small in that dress. There was no confidence. The person she had been at the bar never existed.

Bobby stepped out of her way and let her inside. He looked tired, his eyes red. "If you want to shower, change, and burn what you're wearing," he told her, "I'm sure I can find something for you to wear tonight."

When he closed the door and followed her into the living room, she looked back to him and he said, "You aren't going to insult me if you go upstairs now. I'll go look for clothes that aren't… that."

She left him on the bottom floor and ran upstairs. I had known that she wasn't comfortable in that short black dress, or any dress she had been wearing recently, but she had never let me see that discomfort until now.

Without a word, Bobby went about looking for clothes. When he found something he assumed might fit, he took them upstairs and left them on the floor outside of the bathroom door. Steam poured out the cracks in the door. I kept out. What she did behind bathroom doors was no one's business but her own.

Bobby returned downstairs to sit in his study. The lamp over the large book in the middle gave enough light to read by. He leaned back in his chair for only a moment and nodded off. A creaking step brought him awake with a snort and he looked over to the stairs where Lark stepped barefoot onto the floor. I had never seen her without shoes.

She wore a pair of gray sweatpants and a red plaid shirt that hung on her smaller frame without any kind of shape. Her red hair was wet as it hung down her back. In her arms she carried the balled up dress.

A little fire carried on in the fireplace and Bobby pointed his thumb at it. "If you want," he told her.

A flicker of a smile crossed Lark's face as she stepped forward in light steps and tossed the black dress in. I didn't know she had hated it that much.

The fabric caught quickly and she knelt down at the hearth to watch it burn. The firelight reflected in her blue eyes and I could see a little of her spirit returning.

"Bobby," she said softly and he leaned forward in his chair to hear her. "I'm in over my head."

I could see the question forming on his face, but he didn't ask anything. He was very careful to choose the right words and move in the right way to try and encourage her to continue.

"I've got a demon after me," she said. "He needs me to build him a weapon to kill God. He has Sam Colt's tools and I need to get them back. I need to hide them."

"You're not a gunsmith," Bobby said.

"I don't think he knows that," she said and then held her hands out to the fire to warm them.

Bobby leaned back in his chair and set his hands in his lap.

"It's only a matter of time. Because someone is going to talk," she said.

"You think I would?" Bobby asked, offended.

She shook her head slowly. "I trust you, Bobby. More than anyone else in the world. I trust you." She looked to him and said, "And I won't be offended if you say no. It's not your job to keep me out of Hell."

"You got a plan?" he asked.

"I wish I did," she replied. "My old one backfired."

"The dress?"

"Found a lower demon and got a bad lead," she replied.

Bobby frowned. It made me suspicious. He knew something that I did not.

"I thought," she said, "maybe it doesn't matter if he finds me. I can't do anything anyway."

"That demon'll torture you til you'd sell your soul to be able to build that thing," Bobby told her.

Lark shook her head. "I'd love to see him try," she said. "Pops always said I'd be the one to survive Hell. What's one demon?"

I couldn't understand why she was so chatty. I was just a bit jealous. Most of our conversations ended with yelling or silence. This was just a simple conversation between two hunters and Lark seemed so relaxed.

"Laura," he warned and she sighed. "Look, I have to work the phones for Rufus tonight. Why don't you get some sleep and we'll work on a plan starting in the morning?"

"How is Rufus?" she asked.

"He's still Rufus," Bobby sighed.

"Of course he is," she replied as she rose to her feet. She turned and headed back up the stairs without another word. She walked on her toes, never letting her heels touch the floor as she left the room.

When the door upstairs closed, Bobby went for his phone. He put it to his ear and waited. "Dean," he said when it was answered. "Laura's here. I think we might have a problem. Yeah? Alright."

Door closed, Lark slept under her bed. A casual conversation with the man downstairs and she was back to hiding under furniture. She would hardly talk to me and yet she had slept on the bed in every hotel we had stayed in. Even if she was covering her head with a pillow.

Under the bed, she curled upon herself and shut her eyes tight. She remained like that for a few minutes before stirring restlessly. And then I noticed she didn't have her shotgun. I retrieved it for her and set it just under the bed. To her, it would have looked as if it had appeared out of nowhere.

When she saw it, she grabbed it and held it close. "Thank you, Gabriel," she said softly.

I stayed until she fell asleep.

Come morning, Lark was awake and the shotgun lay in her lap as she sat on the bed. She looked at it like a normal person would look at an old friend. She was in deep thought, her brows furrowed and her lips turned down in a frown.

Taking a deep breath, she left the bed and tiptoed over to the window. The sun rising in the east cast a warm glow on her face and she set her forehead against the glass.

The rumbling of an approaching vehicle brought her eyes up to see the black 1967 Chevrolet Impala pulling into the yard. She looked at it questioningly as the Winchester brothers stepped out and walked close to her truck. She made a slight noise of uncertainty and then left her room.

Shotgun in hand, she went down the stairs on her toes and when she stepped onto the first floor, Bobby opened the door for the brothers. When Dean saw her, he raised the pistol in his hand and Lark was quick to raise her shotgun.

"Put that thing down, Dean!" Bobby shouted at him.

"You said there was a problem," Sam said, his own gun raised.

"Not that kind of problem, you idjits!" He then looked to Lark and asked, "When did you bring in your gun?"

Her eyes narrowed at him and she said sarcastically, "An angel. In the middle of the night. He had pretty eyes."

They stared at her, the Winchester's guns lowering slightly.

"Laura," Bobby said and she set her shotgun against her shoulder.

"You call in the reinforcements for me, Bobby?" she asked.

"Can you blame me?" he said, "You come in asking for help in the middle of the night. And you sure as hell aren't acting like yourself."

"Dammit Bobby, I'm tired!" she said loudly. "I've been trying to get a lead on this demon bastard for days and you have no idea what I had to go through to get it!"

There was anger in her voice. Her empty left hand trembled and she balled it into a fist and stuck it in the pocket of her sweatpants.

Dean put away his gun and Sam followed. It was only then that Bobby let them enter.

"So a demon's trailing you?" Sam asked.

"What's it want?" Dean asked.

Lark seemed to falter. There were three pairs of eyes on her and she only then seemed to realize where she was. She tucked her anger back inside and she unclenched her fist. Immediately, she was a different person. She was the Lark that had hesitantly shared her truck with me. Quiet and distant.

"The demon," Bobby began for her.

"No, wait a minute, Bobby," Dean said. He then looked to Lark and said, "Look, I know we aren't on the best of terms and junk. Hell, we're not really on any terms, but if we're supposed to help you, I want to hear it from you."

Sam spoke up then. "Bobby wouldn't have called us for any reason other than an emergency," he said gently.

When Lark didn't seem to want to speak, Dean said, "I'll let Bobby speak for you this one last time, on one condition." He opened his arms like he was waiting for a hug.

"Dean," his brother warned him.

Dean dropped his arms to his sides and then held out one closed fist. "Fist bump," he said. "Should be easy enough for a robot like you."

Lark asked, "What's a fist bump?"

Dean's jaw dropped. "Are you kidding? Did no one teach you anything?"

Bobby said, "I told you the first time you two met her that she wasn't like you and Sam."

"You mean not human?" Dean asked.

"It's like this," Sam said and held out his fist to Lark. "Just do the same thing."

She held out her left fist toward Sam and he step forward and bumped his fist against hers. She looked at him, puzzled.

"Bump," he said. "That's all."

Silence descended upon them then and finally Bobby moved past the Winchesters to where his desk was. "Laura has a demon trailing her."

"I thought you were invisible," Sam said.

Bobby looked to Lark. She looked back at him and he shrugged. "I don't know what happened," she lied.

"Now she talks," Dean sighed.

"All I know," she said to Dean, "is that he doesn't know I'm a Colt, but he saw me, and he remembers me. So if any hunter I've ever come across remembers me and just happens to mention it to that demon, he'll be able to find me."

"Then you just kill it," Dean said.

"Oh, I forgot," she replied sharply, "Not only am I not used to having a target on my back like the rest of you, there's something I need from this demon."

"Something you need from the demon?" Sam asked.

"Samuel Colt's tools," Bobby said. "Turns out Laura's the only one that can use them to make a weapon that can kill God."

"Kill God?" Dean asked skeptically. "You're kidding, right?"

"Here's the kicker," Bobby said, "She's not a gunsmith."

Sam's brow furrowed. "But the demon doesn't know that."

"Nope," Lark and Bobby replied at the same time.

"What do they look like?" Dean asked. "The tools?"

Lark shrugged. "I don't know."

"Where are they at?" Sam asked.

Lark shook her head. "I don't know."

"Do you have a plan?" Dean asked.

She shook her head.

Sam frowned. "Would it really matter, though?" he asked. "Aside from having demons looking for you for a change. I mean, you can't make the gun, so he really has no use for you."

"Meaning," Bobby said, "when he finds that out, he'll probably just kill her and then we still lose Samuel Colt's stuff."

"Wait," Dean said, "I thought we were trying to save Lark, not get Colt's tools."

"I thought we were doing both?" Sam said.

Lark shrugged. "Priority is the tools," she said. "I am just not a fan of losing my life at the same time, but if it happens…"

I wasn't pleased with her answer, but I couldn't do anything.

Sam looked at her and said, "So you need… help with getting the tools back?"

"I thought we were ganking a demon that's after you," Dean said.

Bobby said nothing. He appeared to know that this was coming. He knew Lark better than any of us. After a moment, he told them, "We need a plan."

Lark went to the dark fireplace and took a seat on the floor. "That's why I'm here," she sighed.

"Well," Dean said, "let's get started."


	7. Chapter 7: Lark

Chapter 7: Lark

This was going to come back at me at some point. I was sure of it. They were all going to find out that I could make that God-killing gun. Perhaps I just didn't want to admit it to myself. I would keep that secret as long as I could. I would never make it. That is too much power for one being to have. I didn't want to be responsible for the death of God. The backwards Catholic church was doing a bang-up job without me.

Bobby made breakfast while Sam flipped through book after book. Dean bounced ideas off of his brother, and I hovered in the kitchen, looking into pots and pans on the stove while Bobby stirred one thing or cut up another.

I was trying to stay out of his way, but it smelled delicious.

"I'm not a chef," he told me.

I shrugged. Food was food. Unless it was a Monster Burger, then it was death in delicious meat form. My stomach became upset just thinking about it.

"The tools are really the priority?" Bobby asked me suddenly and I stared at him.

I hadn't been expecting him to ask me that. "Of course," I told him. "My life is not nearly worth so much."

It had been the treasure of my family. My father would have been adamant that they be returned. Out of all of us, I had been the most expendable. It was unlucky for us Colts that I was the last one left. It would end with me no matter what. The tools were worth more than my life. I wasn't afraid to admit that.

"Laura," he said, "they're just tools. Ones that only you can use. Maybe we can find a way to make you invisible again and then it won't matter."

I doubted I was ever going to be alone again. My time by myself was gone. I was at the mercy of angels and demons and everyone stuck in between Heaven and Hell. I had to adapt my comfort zone, and that was the most difficult thing of all. I wasn't ready to die, but I wasn't ready to change. Change, I was certain, was going to get me killed.

I sat down at the table and set my shotgun beside me. There was silence all around me. Everyone was busy with one thing or another, and suddenly I felt ill-at-ease. I was the only one not trying to save me. I wondered why that was. I wasn't scared of Crowley. Everyone was scared for me. I only didn't want my name being shared to every demon. I didn't want the target on my back. I didn't want to build a weapon I had no use for. Who had even decided that my family would carry that kind of burden? The power to kill God and the Devil. At that moment, I wondered, who was responsible for making us carry that burden alone. Who was responsible for making us invisible?

For some reason, I had never asked that question before. I had never wanted to know why. Why was I different? Why was my family special enough to be blessed with invisibility. Perhaps, before, since it was all I knew, I didn't think anything of it. Now that I had seen that there was a life outside of what I had always known, I was starting to think for myself.

"I don't like that look on your face," Bobby said and I looked up at him. I snapped out of my questioning thoughts and just stared at him.

With a sigh, he said, "I'll pack your breakfast to go."

I hadn't realized I had made a decision. What had shown on my face? Did Bobby really know me better than I knew myself?

"Look," he said, "you go do what you have to, we'll-"

I cut him off, "No," I said and his brows raised. "I'm not used to having a safety net, Bobby," I told him.

He nodded. I didn't have to explain myself. He already knew what I was saying. Staying away from Bobby Singer's place was going to be difficult. I had run for help because I had gotten scared, and he had been ready and prepared to help me. I had wanted help, hadn't I? He had called in the Winchesters for support, for my support. I was truly lost.

"I get it, Laura," Bobby said. "We'll keep working on some kind of plan to keep from feeding you directly to the demons. But if you walk out of here, we need something to know you're okay."

"You want me to call in every night?" I asked. I had been joking, but it hadn't sounded that way to him.

"Preferably," he told me. He wasn't kidding. "Most cell phones have a built in GPS," he continued. "We can turn yours on and if you don't check in, we'll know something's got to you and be able to get there."

Again, something must have shown on my face because he said, "Don't give me that look, Laura. I'm just trying to keep you from getting yourself killed like the rest of those fools you're related to."

No one had ever called anyone in my family a fool. Part of that was because no one knew we existed, but Bobby did. My uncle had told him a lot, much of it he probably shouldn't have.

"I know you're used to being by yourself," he said, "but you've got people that are willing to give you a hand every now and then, and that's something you don't just throw away."

This was my first scolding that wasn't accompanied by blood. I had been surprised by his softer tone and his insistence to help.

"Okay," I told him.

"Phone," he said and held out his hand. Then he called, "Hey Sam, come in here a minute."

Sam rose from his seat and walked into the kitchen. Bobby pointed from me to Sam and I held out my old, junk phone.

"Does this thing have that GPS dealie on it?" Bobby asked.

Sam took my phone and chuckled. "Uh…" he said, "this thing still works?"

"That's a no," I told Bobby.

Digging into his back pocket, Sam said, "Take this one." He handed me back my old phone along along with one that looked fancy compared to mine. It was only then that he asked, "What's going on?"

"Laura's taking off," Bobby said.

Dean called out, "We're doing research for nothing?"

"So you're checking in?" Sam asked me.

"Nightly," Bobby informed him. Then he said to me, "If you don't, we'll come find you."

"You call first," I warned him.

Dean chuckled, "Don't want us to catch you with your boyfriend?"

When I replied, "What's a boyfriend?" he wasn't laughing anymore.

"Call if you need anything," Sam told me.

As I left Bobby Singer's house, everything felt strange. My own family hadn't offered help like these three men did. My own family beat me senseless and raised me in blood and guns, and these three wished me well and offered me their time without seeming to want anything in return. In my family, everything came with a price. I was hoping the Winchesters didn't want anything, but I expected one day I would have to pay up.

In my truck, I set my hands on my steering wheel and bowed my head. I didn't like praying to Gabriel, but he would hear me regardless if I prayed or not. After my shotgun had appeared under the bed, I knew he was there, watching me. I couldn't shake the feeling.

"Gabriel," I said softly, "I need to do this on my own. I can't have you with me. Not in your vessel, nor your vessel with another face. I have to be alone right now."

I looked around my truck. No one was there. I had a paper plate wrapped in foil and a shotgun and a big mess of clothes, but there wasn't a body in sight. It was time to leave.

My truck was used to stopping every so many miles for gas. Suddenly I was finding that I had to stop to take out a wrench and tighten everything back up. The vibrations were making Earl older, faster. Earl was the name of my truck. He had been my father's truck from the day he was brand new, and I got the keys when my father was killed. Best thing he ever gave me. Or rather, the best thing I ever took.

I was stopped on the side of the road near a small town in Colorado. There was a wrench in my hand and I was standing on the front bumper of my truck tightening the screws when a truck pulled up beside me.

"You need help, Sir?" came out of the other vehicle and I started laughing.

I stepped off my bumper and said, "No thank you, Sir."

He looked surprised. "I'm sorry, Ma'am," he apologized. "Are you sure you've got it?"

"Just an old truck," I told him and then shrugged and waved goodbye as he left.

I was assured of two things at that moment. First, people could definitely see me. And second, I looked like a man from behind. Only one of those problems bothered me.

When this happened, I was two days on my own. Two nights I had called Bobby before bed and told him where I was. However, when I told him, "I'm sleeping in my truck," he told me to get a hotel room.

I didn't like being confined to an actual room to sleep in.

"In case something happens and you lose your phone, we have a paper trail we can follow to find you," he told me.

That worried me a little. Leaving a trail for Bobby was almost as bad as leaving a trail for any local demons. Reluctantly, I spent the night in a small hotel with severely dated decorations. That was the first night on my own in a room, and it was the start of never sleeping in my truck again if I could help it.

One of the things that had always bothered me about hotel rooms was that problem with packing and unpacking. In my truck, everything was there. I hadn't cared for the hotel rooms when traveling with Gabriel because there was someone in my room that never slept and was stronger than me. If something were to happen, I wouldn't be able to stop it. That was why I had slept with a pillow over my head. I didn't want to see an attack coming if I couldn't stop it. I still had nightmares about the perfect life he had tried to create for me.

A hotel had it's perks, however. There was room. There was a shower. I never bathed so much as those few days I was trying to understand who I was when people could see me. There was a lot I didn't understand. What I did know, was that I was not raised the way everyone else was.

Dark, seedy bars were where I found my comfort zone. Everyone was drunk, everyone was unhappy, and everyone was complaining to the poor bartender. Except me, and he thought that was weird. He also thought I was pretty. Compared to everyone in there, I was their definition of drop-dead gorgeous.

I found my calling in sarcasm. It was easier to talk to people when they thought I was being sarcastic. I was just trying to get them to leave me alone. People were strange. They were cattle, crowding one another for their own desires.

I was sitting in a bar in a rural Kansas town when I had a thought. Was I even trying to save anything? Should I be? I had grown up as a hunter, a ruthless one. Hunting always came first. Occasionally, people were saved along the way, but it wasn't a priority. The more I saw of the human world I was trying to understand, I didn't think I cared much for it. Everyone wanted something. No one was happy. They hurt one another with fists or words and no one batted an eye. To me, they were just another kind of monster. By birth, I was one of them. I was just another kind of monster.

At that moment, I started recounting the stories of the Bible, as it had been taught to me. I was starting to agree with Lucifer. We were nothing. We were insignificant and disgusting. We could take paradise and it would never be enough.

"Hey," I heard and looked up to see Gabriel sitting adjacent to me at the corner of the bar.

"I thought I said I didn't want you here," I told him.

The bartender took that time to come over and ask, "He bothering you, Miss?"

I wanted to say yes, but I didn't. I shook my head and the bartender left me and the archangel alone. So did everyone else that had been bothering me by trying to buy me drinks. "What do you want?" I asked, rougher than I had intended.

"You've been sitting here for three hours and every ten minutes you look more and more like you're going to shoot up the place," he said, taking a drink from the beer he had brought over with him.

I looked away from him. He had seen my thoughts.

"Hey," he said again, drawing my attention. I realized at that moment, he purposefully wasn't using my name. People could see me, but my name was still mine to give. "People aren't all bad. Even when they're bothering you."

I felt transparent.

"Come on," he said, "I'll show you."

Then he took my hand in his and let go before I even had a chance to react.

"I'm sorry," he said and took a step away from me.

The word was unfamiliar. Sorry. I assumed it was apologetic. "I don't want to go with you," I said.

He sat back down and said, "You're not seeing the good in your own world by sitting in dark bars with a bunch of creepers."

Someone said, "Hey!" with offense.

"Come with me," Gabriel said. "Let me drive this time." Then he quickly added, "Not your truck, of course."

The last place I wanted to go was where the angel wanted me to. I had been to that place before. His perfection where I knelt in fear. That was the same as my world, just brighter. The danger was still there.

"No," I told him. "Now leave."

He left without another word. His quiet departure struck me as suspicious. He knew where I was and he had been watching me. I wouldn't sleep that night, remembering he could take me at anytime. I was uncomfortable in my own hotel room. Suddenly nothing was safe.

My phone rang a little past midnight and I swore because I forgot to call Bobby before laying down to sleep. "Sorry, Bobby," I said, using my new word.

"Better be sorry," Bobby replied. "How are you?"

"Tired. Goodnight."

With a kinder tone, he said, "Goodnight, Laura."

I put my pillow over my head and closed my eyes. It didn't make me sleep.

Some time after sun-up, I fell asleep. I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. There was something about the archangel Gabriel that drove away my hunger and left me with an overwhelming want of alcohol.

I returned to the same bar that night without a bit of food in my stomach. For a seedy bar, several physically attractive women showed up for Ladies' Night. I was surprised. Then, the moment one of them opened their mouths, I wasn't surprised anymore. Unfortunately for her, her comment had been directed at me.

"Ew, what is she wearing? Is it even a she?"

Oddly, at that moment, I had had enough alcohol in my system that I didn't feel the need to shut up and take it. I spun around on my barstool and said, "I'm sorry you feel the need to degrade my appearance to make you feel more confident about your own. I'm also sorry that I didn't wake up and think that I had to conform to your idea of socially acceptable grooming standards. In the future, I will learn to mind my manners. You should, too."

She scoffed and she and her friends went to a different side of the bar.

"You are a mean drunk," I heard and turned my head to see Gabriel again.

"Son of a bitch…" I mumbled. "What do you want this time?"

"I'm not here to intrude," he said, "by all means, carry on. That was enjoyable. I'm just here to make sure you don't turn into a meaner drunk."

I didn't care what he was saying. The more I drank, the less I cared about anything. I was used to alcohol. Sometimes, it was the only thing to drink. Usually, it was safer than the water. It was not, however, safe on an empty stomach after a sleepless night.

"Slow down," Gabriel told me. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"Maybe," was all I remember saying.

When I was sufficiently trashed, I tried to leave the bar. I stumbled over my own two feet and staggered out the door. And when I was on the sidewalk, I started to feel ill. My stomach roiled. It felt like there were bugs prickling the inside of my throat.

And then I vomited. It wasn't alcohol-induced vomiting, there were cockroaches on the sidewalk. There had been cockroaches in my throat. I coughed and coughed and there were only more bugs.

"Lark!" Gabriel was there, looking me over as I had my hands on my knees, trying to cough out more bugs. He stood me up and started patting me down, reaching into my pockets. Somewhere in the process of doing that, he somehow hit the phone Sam had given me and made a call.

"Hello?" was all I heard from my right pocket and in between coughs, I drunkenly pulled it to my ear.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Lark?" came Sam's voice.

"Sammy!" I shouted back and then coughed up several more cockroaches. "Look, I would love to talk, but I'm drunk, coughing up roaches, and a little pissed off. I'll talk to you later." I ended the phone call after hurling up another handful of bugs.

"Here!" Gabriel said and from out of my left jacket pocket, he pulled a hex bag. Then he destroyed it.

The roaches stopped coming out of my mouth. I reached into my mouth and pulled out a leg that had gotten caught in my teeth. I had sworn I would never put another roach in my mouth, but I supposed them coming out was a whole other deal.

"Witch?" I asked Gabriel.

"Looks that way," he replied.

"Bitch!" I shouted at no one in particular.

"Look," he said, "you're drunk. Let's get you back to your room and when you sober up you can hunt her down."

"Why wait?" I asked as I turned around to go back into the bar.

Gabriel blocked me, holding out his arm steering be back around toward the road. "Room," he said.

"Are you coming?" I asked.

His face reddened. "Just taking you there," he said.

"Good," I said. "I don't like you. Why are you touching me? Wasn't that a rule?"

"Calm down," he said. "I'm just walking you home."

"Stop touching me," I snapped at him. He quickly let me go and stepped away. "I don't like people touching me."

"Lark," he said and held his hands out. "Easy… I'm not trying to hurt you."

"Bullshit!" Words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. "That's what people do! I'm not stupid!"

People on the street were staring. I was yelling. Gabriel was trying to avoid confrontation and I wouldn't let him. "You're all the same!" I shouted.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Liar… all the same. All the damn same! You claim people. You lock them away and I will not be locked away!"

"What are you talking about?" he said softly. "I don't do that."

"Bullshit!" I accused him. "You're all the same! And I will not be a toy! I will not be-" I vomited. Not cockroaches, but actual vomit, all over Gabriel's shoes.

"Alright," he said, "time for you to go to bed."


	8. Chapter 8: Gabriel

Chapter 8: Gabriel

Lark passed out on a street corner after declaring to the world that I had plans to kidnap her and make her into my sex toy. I had no idea what she was talking about. I took her to her room and set her in bed. Her phone rang in her pocket, and I knew it was either Bobby or the Winchesters calling to check on her, especially after her vomiting roaches while on the phone with Sam.

I pulled her phone and answered it with her voice. "Hello?" I asked.

"Lark?" Sam asked. "Are you alright?"

"It was a witch," I said.

"You got it?" he asked. He sounded genuinely concerned.

"Yeah. Easy," I told him.

"Right… Night Lark."

I hung up. I didn't think she was the type to say goodnight to someone like him.

I left her in her room and stepped out to sit in the back of her truck. I didn't want to give her any reason to doubt me again. I didn't understand what she was saying. My mind began to wander. I had had no contact with the Colts in so long. I wondered the possibility of what had happened to her in life. There were things that happened in the world that were not good, things that no person should have to endure. I feared that in my attempts to keep her family safe, I had doomed her to a life of tragedy.

I had to know. I couldn't fix it, everything was too far gone. I had to let it go. But I had to know, so I could try to make it better. If I could make it up to her, in some way correct my wrong, I could make it better.

Lark didn't wake until the late afternoon. All I heard was the crashing of the table lamp and a tired, "Son of a bitch…"

I left her truck to knock on the door.

It was very quiet inside. Then I heard the sound of a shotgun. "It's me," I said.

Her immediate response was, "Go away."

"We need to talk," I told her.

"No," she told me.

"You puked on my shoes," I said.

Again there was silence on the other end. Then she said, "I don't remember."

"With as much as you drank," I replied, "I'm surprised if you remember anything after I showed up."

"All I remember is cockroaches."

"There was a witch."

"Explains everything," she muttered.

"It actually doesn't explain a few things," I told her. "I have some questions about some things you said."

"Oh hell," I heard her mumble, "What did I say?"

"Can I come in?" I asked.

"I don't know, can you?" she grumbled.

There was sarcasm there that, for anyone else, I would have just gone inside. With Lark, I wasn't going to move until she opened the door.

Finally, it opened just a crack and she looked back at me with her too-blue eyes that were bloodshot from her drinking. She squinted against the light behind me.

"What?" she asked sharply.

"May I come in?" I asked.

She closed the door.

"I need to know about your family," I said.

"No," she said from the other side.

"Lark," I said, "I have to know what happened. I understand your distrust in me, but I want to know why."

Again, she said, "No."

My hands on the doorframe and leaned forward. I had to tell her. "I'm sorry," was what I managed to say. I had to tell her. It was now or never.

"It's my fault," I said. "The reason you have been invisible since birth… I was the one who… cursed your family from Samuel Colt's descendents. When he died, I lost track of his children. I was a fool, and I was kept away by my own spell."

She opened the door and stared back at me. Hangover or not, she appeared completely sober. She didn't appear angry or upset, just blank.

"Will you please tell me what happened?" I asked.

"It was you?" she asked.

"I was friends with Samuel Colt," I said. "He was a brilliant man and a hunter like no other. The things he made revolutionized your world and I wanted to make sure he could leave a legacy. I wanted to be sure that his talents were not lost."

"We were lost," she told me. She was so controlled, her voice soft as she stared back at me without emotion. "We have been lost for a long time, Gabriel. Did you never even try to look for us?"

"I did," I said. "But the spell, the Enochian carved on your bones and the bones of your father and his father, all the way back to the son of Samuel Colt. The spell will not let me anywhere near your family. If I go into the past, I can't see them. I can't see you at any time before I first met you."

She gave me an empty chuckle and said, "There were so many spells and wards on the homestead, God himself couldn't even get in."

Something in the way she said those words filled me with dread. I was going to have to tread carefully or risk her shutting me out for good. The problem was, I didn't know how to proceed. With Lark, every step I took was the wrong one. If I faltered, I was afraid that I would have to force her into her own past so that I could learn what happened to the Colts. I was only going to get one chance before she tried to set me on fire, if she wasn't already planning it.

"Lark," I said softly, "I didn't know. Please, let me make this right."

She tried to shut the door in my face. I reached through and barely grabbed her wrist.

The hotel was gone, replaced by stone walls and darkness. I immediately regretted what I had done.

"You wanted the truth," Lark said in a breathless voice. "You'll get it."

Lark's hand in mine, I tried to send us back to that hotel room but I couldn't. "We're stuck…" I said. She said nothing. She hadn't lied. God could not reach here, and I could not leave.

She moved forward, small, cautious steps, but she didn't let me go. I had grabbed her to get here, and now she wanted me with her. I was apprehensive as she opened a door and let the dim light into our room from the cinder block hallway. It was quiet as she led me out and to the left.

Behind us came a woman's scream of help. She had heard our footsteps and called out to us. I turned to go to her, but Lark pulled me around.

"There is someone—" I managed to say, but she pulled me before her by my wrist.

She looked into my eyes and told me, "You don't speak. You stay with me. You do as I do, or so help me I will set you on fire and live out the rest of my days in the past. I survived it before. I will survive it again."

I nodded. It was all I could do.

She walked down the hallway with me in tow and a step that said she would kill anyone that contested her. Even me. I had no power in these walls. She could kill me without holy fire.

Boot steps in our direction made her hand tighten on mine. A tall man came into sight from around the corner. He had hair as red as hers and the same blue eyes with the same malicious intent.

He pulled a gun on us at the same time that Lark pulled on him. I didn't even notice that she had been armed. She must have gone for it when I came through the door.

"Who are you?" the man asked with a rough voice.

"Danica Colt," she replied.

"How do I know you're a Colt?" he asked.

Lark scoffed. "You're an idiot," she said and tapped the walls with the barrel of her gun. "There is no one else in these walls," she said roughly.

"And that one?" he asked of me.

"Mine," she said.

"Who's your father?" he asked.

"Your brother," she shot back.

I was confused. Especially when the man replied, "Nathanael has no children."

"Why would he tell you if he did, Michael? Considering the shithole you run here," Lark told him.

He stepped forward and she pressed her gun to his chest. He stepped back and called over his shoulder, "Nathan!" His voice echoed down the hall until a man a head shorter came quickly around the corner.

Lark hadn't been expecting him and she squeezed my hand in hers and held it tightly.

"I didn't know you had a daughter, Nathan," the taller, red-haired man said to the shorter.

The shorter man's Colt-blue eyes darted to Lark and then back to his brother. "Why would I tell you if I did? I know what happens to Colt women." He then looked to Lark and said, "I thought I told you to wait at home."

Lark shrugged. "I wanted the truth," she told him.

Michael said, "This is why you left? A daughter?"

Nathanael replied, "One of the many reasons I have for leaving this psychotic stronghold."

If Michael was smarter, he would notice that there was no way for Lark to be Nathanael's daughter. She looked young, but she wasn't young enough. I considered the fact that he was looking for some reason to understand why there were two extra people in his home. Nathanael, however, I couldn't understand why he would cover for us.

"Now that you two are here," Nathanael said and waved us forward. Lark kept her pistol in hand, but lowered it as we passed Michael.

Down the hall we went, around the corner, following Nathanael to uncertainty. Lark didn't falter, but she still didn't let go of my hand.

We walked into a well lit room that looked little better than the world on the other side of the door. Lark released my hand as she closed the door behind us.

Softly, Nathanael said, "Who are you two and why am I lying to Michael?"

"You can call me Danica," Lark said. She pointed a thumb to me and said, "Call him Gabe."

Nathanael didn't appear to believe the names for a second, but he went with it. "You made the wrong choice to step in here," he said.

"I've been here before," Lark told him. "But we do need to leave."

"I'm supposed to be staying for three more days," Nathanael said. "I can get you out of here then, but I doubt Michael will let you leave before that. Considering you're supposed to be my family." He then looked at me and asked, "Are you supposed to be her… husband?"

I didn't like the way he hesitated on the word. I shrugged as my answer.

"You keep him close," Nathanael said to Lark, "Michael's boys are ruthless."

"I'm well aware," she replied.

"I'll do my best," Nathanael told her. "But, before you leave, I would like the truth."

Lark only looked back at him. I could almost see her thinking. She didn't want to tell him anything.

Down the hall on the other side of the door, a woman screamed. The sound of dishes shattering on the stone floor made Lark wince. A man shouted wordlessly and the sound of bare feet echoed down the hallway.

Nathanael rushed to the door behind us and left us standing there.

"What is it?" I asked Lark.

"A bad day," she told me.

She checked the magazine in her gun and counted her bullets. I hadn't expected that. She was prepared to shoot her own family. It made little sense to me. That wasn't what families did.

"If I die here—" Lark began and I interrupted.

"I'll bring you back."

She looked me in the eye and said, "Don't you dare."

If she had grown up in this place, why would she not want to return? Why would she refuse to be brought back to life? Wasn't that what humans wanted? A second chance at life after death?

Lark didn't grab my hand this time as she stepped out of the room and back into the dimly lit hallway. I followed her to the right, the direction Nathanael had gone. We walked slowly, each step deliberate. She wasn't in a hurry to be anywhere.

Ahead of us was a doorway with bright fluorescent lights spilling out. Lark kept away from the doorway, but paused when a voice came from inside.

"That's why I'm here," I heard Nathanael say. "If I can convince him, you'll come live a normal life with me."

I peeked inside to see him tending to the bloody bare feet of a little red-haired girl. She saw me and Nathanael turned.

"Where's your friend?" he asked me and I pointed to where Lark stood against the wall beside me. Her eyes were closed and her arms were crossed.

"Where is she?" came a shout down the hall, a roaring voice that echoed off every surface. "Where's that little bitch?"

A young man with dark hair and a strong build stormed towards me and stopped short when he noticed that I wasn't familiar. "Get out of my way!" was all he said.

I was suddenly standing between Nathanael and this rabid young man that couldn't have been more than eighteen.

Lark reached out and pulled me to her with enough force to throw me off balance. I was weak here, and I felt fear growing within me. I felt small.

"Is she in there?" the young man shouted. "Get out of my way! I'm going to beat the shit out of her."

"And what did she do?" Nathanael asked calmly, though I could hear the tension in his words.

"That little shit barged in and ruined the mood! I was balls deep in that bitch and she finally shut up!"

Nathanael replied, "Isaiah, there are scheduled times for a reason. Sky had the right to be in there at meal time. You did not."

The young man, Isaiah, roared with rage and turned away from Nathanael. When his Colt-blue eyes landed on Lark, he approached her and reached out to put a hand on her. I stepped in his way and he stopped.

"Who the fuck are you?" he shouted at me.

I had moved without Lark and drawn attention to myself. Nathanael stepped into the hallway and Lark walked past me. In mid step, she struck Isaiah's legs out from under him and he crashed to the floor. Immediately he was back on his feet, stunned.

"Your cousin, Danica," Nathanael said, "and hers, Gabe."

"You named it?" Isaiah laughed.

I did not like being called an "it".

"Guess you really like this one," Isaiah said and circled me, looking me over as if I were meat.

Lark whistled and caught his attention. I looked, too. She had a pistol trained at his head. Silently, she waved him away with it.

"I like you," Isaiah said as he took a step away from me.

"Cousin," Nathanael repeated and the boy shrugged before walking away.

I couldn't help but ask, "Is incest a common activity?"

Lark and Nathanael replied, "No," in the same sharp tone.

The two of them suddenly looked down the hall. My gaze followed theirs to where Michael strode toward us. His shoulders were squared and his fists clenched. He walked up to his brother and stared down at him as he said, "Where is Sky?" His spoke through his teeth, his jaw tight.

The little red-haired girl pushed past Nathanael and Michael grabbed her by her arm and nearly dragged her down the hall. I watched her go, walking on her toes as the rest of her feet were bandaged in white cloth.

Nathanael heaved a sigh.

"Where's he taking her?" I asked.

Neither of them answered me.

When Nathanael turned back into the room, Lark followed him in silence, and I followed her the same way. "I suppose," Nathanael said as he began cleaning up the blood that had left drops and footprints on the stone floor. "I need to find the two of you a room."

"One room?" I asked, knowing Lark didn't want me anywhere close to her.

"Shut. Up," she told me slowly.

Nathanael eyed us suspiciously and shook his head. "If you're pretending to be my child," he said, "Perhaps I should know something about the two of you?"

"Who's going to ask?" Lark inquired.

He chuckled, "You are a Colt…" and shook his head sadly.

There was something very wrong with this family.

"Hey Uncle Nate!" echoed towards us and two younger boys with similar build and dark hair, compared to Isaiah, bound towards us with quick steps. "Dad said you brought your daughter. Is she…" they stopped short of the doorway when they saw me.

"Aw," one of them complained.

"Jonah, Isaac," Nathanael said as he went to the door. "She is your cousin! Now go tell your father Danica needs a room while we're here."

"He's busy with Sky," Jonah scoffed. "We're running out of pretty dishes because her dumbass keeps breaking them all. What an idiot."

Isaac quickly said, "You would think she wouldn't get so scared about seeing a woman in her place."

Jonah added, "I can't wait til I'm as old as Isaiah! Then I can get one of my own!" He grabbed his brother in a headlock and spun him around the hallway as Isaac tried to fight him off.

I was tongue-tied. There was nothing I could say.

"A room!" Nathanael called after them.

They didn't respond as they went back down the hall the way they had come.

I asked, "What did they mean?"

Nathanael shook his head and told me, "Pray you get out of this godless place before you find out."

He left the room and we followed. Before we were too far from the room he had used as an infirmary, Nathanael turned toward us and said, "I know you're one of us. There's no way you can't be. But he isn't one of us. And there is no possible way that Michael and his boys will believe that he is yours. You lack the control that they have."

Lark stepped close to him and said in a very low voice, "I will never be the kind of monster that they are."

He appeared nervous. Swallowing hard, he said, "You might have to pretend. I don't care who the two of you are to each other. But, as a Colt, you have to know that keeping a low profile means playing by their rules."

Lark's jaw tightened the way that Michael's had, her fists clenched as well. "I will not subject him to that," she growled.

"Danica?" I said and she turned slowly. "You do whatever you have to do so I can get you back home. I deserve what I get."

Lark told me, "I'm not worried about you."

I held my hands out to her. "I can't hurt you," I said. "I never would to begin with, and I have no powers in these walls."

Nathanael looked at me and said, "What are you?"

"A witch," Lark and I replied. I looked to her and couldn't help but smile. She turned her gaze away from me.

"You might want to keep that fact to yourself," Nathanael said. "Michael is not a fan of anything other than humans."

"Well aware," Lark muttered.

He began to leave again and as Lark went to follow him, I grabbed her hand. She spun around and stepped in close. I looked down and found a knife pressed against my stomach. I let her go. That was my warning.

"Whatever you have to do," I told her.

"Keep your mouth shut," she said. "I mean it this time."

There was a dining hall, quiet and dim as the rest of the underground. There was a large oak table with chairs all around. I sat beside Lark and across from Nathanael. No one else was in there yet, we only sat and waited. It was eerily quiet in those stone walls. I didn't understand why there was a table like this. Who would be cooking? Michael didn't seem the type. I opened my mouth to ask, but closed it without saying anything. I had to listen to Lark. I was vulnerable, and so was she.

"You're lucky," Michael's voice echoed through the hallway before he entered the dining room. "The boys sacked a deer this morning."

He and Isaiah brought in a large pot between them and set it in the middle of the table. It smelled deplorable. There were bowls already on the table, but there were no utensils. They scooped the bowl into the pot and it spilled along the table as they took it to their seats. It was a drinking soup. Lark's bowl beside me smelled putrid.

"Yours doesn't want anything?" Isaiah asked Lark. He sat close to Nathanael and stared at her as he ate.

Lark ignored him. She didn't seem interested in the food before her.

I glanced about the table in my silence. Michael and his boys were there, but where was little Sky?

"Danica?" Michael said sternly. "Isaiah asked you a question."

Lark looked back at Michael and said, "I have no loyalties to Isaiah. As for the question, he is not allowed."

"They're no good for their purpose when they're weak," Isaiah said.

Nathanael quickly interjected, "Michael, do you have an extra room for them?"

"I do," was the reply. "Small bed. It's a woman's cell." He looked at Lark and added, "I'm sure you'll feel at home in there."

Nathanael shot back, "How dare you? Lock your own daughter up, but don't you dare threaten mine!" There was anger in his voice. I wasn't sure he was capable of it.

Michael stood. Lark was on her feet before he was, her pistol aimed at his chest. His sons tried to clamber to their feet, their chairs scraping the floor, but Michael waved them to sit. "She's quick," he told his brother. "Why don't you let her stay?"

"Why don't you send Sky to live with me?" Nathanael questioned, "I can obviously raise her to be quicker than your boys."

"There's only one problem," Michael said. "She uses it as a threat. And if you do it again, Little Girl, I'm going to shoot you first."

I didn't think it was a threat. Michael had no idea what she was thinking, and while I didn't either, I assumed she drew out of habit. It was the pure reaction of defending herself. She stopped herself short, knowing that this wasn't the place they died.

"I'll give you your damn room," he told her. "Don't expect anything else."

Lark sat down and took a sip of her soup, but not much else. She didn't look comfortable. I didn't blame her.

"We have an early day tomorrow," Michael said. "Get some sleep while you can."

Jonah and Isaac led us to our room. They were grinning to the point that I was unnerved. "This one," Jonah said.

"Sleep well," Isaac said.

When we walked in, Lark used the light in the hallway to use the matches on a shelf to light candles around the room. The boys were giggling as she closed the door in their faces. She looked at me as she made her way to the bed and pressed her finger to her lips. It still wasn't safe to talk.

The bed was dingy. There was one blanket and it was moth eaten and fairly thin. "It gets cold," she told me.

I made my hands into a halo over my head.

"And yet here we are," she said. She had a point. We had to stay warm. I didn't know if I was susceptible to things that she was without my powers. I wondered if this was how it felt to be human.

Lark began pacing, her boots tapping on the floor. She walked toward me and said softly, "They can walk in at any minute. These doors do not lock."

I offered her my hands. I was there to do what she needed me to do. I quickly realized that she had been right. She was not worried about me. This was no place for her. And this was no place for the coming events. This was not what I wanted. Especially not like this.

Lark slid my jacket from my shoulders and I froze. It was not romantic. It was not attractive as she pulled my shirt over my head. The air was suddenly colder against my skin. She then stopped and looked at my pants. "Everything," she said.

I wasn't sure if I had heard her.

When she saw me hesitate, she said, "Everything," again. I complied.

This was unappealing. I was not excited to be in this position. I watched her as she took the blanket from the bed and gave it to me. Then she motioned towards the bed and I laid down. She took my clothes and stacked them on my on my feet under the blanket. I was still cold.

I watched her in the candlelight as she turned her back to me and slid her own jacket from her shoulders. I turned my gaze to the wall. Unless she wanted my hands on her; unless she wanted my eyes on her, I would keep to myself.

Weight on the side of the bed made me lay very still. Lark's skin was hot against mine. "If someone comes in," she said and handed me her pistol. She would eventually sleep. As an angel, I didn't have to.

Her back was to me as she settled in, her arms hugging her bare body. "Lark?" I said softly.

"Three days," she whispered.

"I'm sorry," was all I could say.

I assumed she fell asleep. I couldn't see her face, but two hours into the night, she began shivering. She hadn't covered her own feet. She was cold, with no intention of sharing body heat.

"Lark?" I whispered and she sat up with the blanket clutched to her chest. She looked at me as if there were some kind of danger in the room. "You're shivering," I told her.

She laid back down and hugged herself again.

"Why are we naked?" I whispered.

"You're supposed to belong to me," she said. "If any of them come in, they won't be suspicious."

"Shouldn't you be… interested in me?" I asked. "Closer?"

"Not necessarily," she told me.

"You're cold," I said.

"If I show interest in you, they will use it against us," she told me.

"You already named me, Lark," I reminded her. "It's serious."

Lark sighed heavily as she rolled over to face me. She had her arms crossed over her chest to keep herself from touching me. I pushed some of the clothes off of my feet and onto hers.

Within the hour, she fell asleep again. In her sleep, she moved closer to me. Her head moved onto my shoulder. She didn't shiver the rest of the night. I stayed quiet to not wake her. She would need her strength and I needed to follow without a second thought.

I closed my eyes. It felt like only seconds had passed when I heard the door open. The weight of Lark's head was still on my shoulder. I reacted how she had wanted me to. I sat up in bed and shot. Isaiah was lucky I was a poor shot. Isaiah ran.

Quickly, Lark was on her feet and getting dressed. I couldn't see her in the dark room, and I wasn't paying attention as I went for my clothes and Lark took the gun away from me.

"Good shot," was all she told me as she ran out of the room. I was running after her. She knew exactly where we were going.

I almost ran into her when she came to a quick halt. I looked past her to where Michael stalked toward us. "What was that shot?" he shouted.

"Your boy came into my room!" Lark shouted back. "I have my right."

"You are a woman!" he told her. "You have no right!"

Lark's knife appeared in her hand.

"As for yours," Michael said and looked to me. "He needs to learn his place! How dare you give him a weapon? You have no authority over him."

"We'll show him the ropes!" Jonah and Isaac called and ran towards us.

Lark stood protectively before me. Again I had put her in a terrible position. There would be nothing in the world that I could do to make up for this.

"Danica?" Nathanael's voice came from behind me. Lark didn't dare take her eyes off of Michael. "Let them go."

There was reluctance in her as she stepped to the side. She didn't look back, only let Jonah and Isaac pull me away.

They each had one of my arms as they dragged me down the hall. We left the quiet side of the compound and entered the halls filled with screams and sobs. When I saw Isaiah standing in front of an open door, I knew this was the start of something unpleasant. I had shot at him. He was planning to pay me back for it.

"Hi Gabe," he said. I wished Lark hadn't given them a real name. Danica could protect her. Being called "Gabe" left me feeling exposed. I wondered if that was what Lark had intended. Had she wanted all of this to hit me personally? No, I couldn't let myself think that. Lark wanted nothing from me. The night in the bed had proved it. She was just trying to survive.

I felt a knife strike my back, the barest of pressure, but it pierced my skin and I gasped. I could feel my blood beading at the wound. Was I not an angel in this place?

"Keep walking," Jonah told me, all the laughter gone from his voice.

Isaiah stepped into the room, a dark room. I wasn't surprised. Everything here was dark. I was beginning to suspect a theme.

At the back wall was a set of shackles hanging halfway up the wall. That was their control.

"Dogs aren't allowed in the bed with their masters," Isaiah told me as he chained my wrists to the wall. I wasn't going to fight him. I wanted to die here about as much as Lark did. I wouldn't give these three young men another reason to spill my blood.

Restrained, I realized they didn't need a reason. I was on my knees with blows raining down on me before I could even think of what to do. My hands were jerked above my head and a closed fist caught me across my face. I grit my teeth and took it.

Eventually, like any sadist, they grew bored of my lack of screams and left me there. I couldn't breathe. Every time I tried, it felt like knives pierced my lungs.

I coughed up blood. I looked over my body and saw no light piercing from inside my vessel, only blood on the front of my shirt.

This was why Lark was not afraid of the dark. She was raised in darkness. It was freedom she didn't know. I hated myself.

The door was closed, leaving me to my solitude. I could live through this pain if Lark could.

Time was lost in that room. I was not hungry, I did not sleep, and yet it felt like an eternity. There was madness to be found in such a place.

I had closed my eyes. With nothing to see in that dark room, the shadows enclosed around me like a comforting friend. There was nothing to see here. I was nothing. I was not a Colt and thus I was property to do with as they pleased.

The door opened and a little candlelight flickered into the room. It was on a tray that slowly moved towards me; a tray held by a little girl with red hair. This was Sky. Four years old, if that, and so in control of her movements as she walked on her toes toward me.

The firelight reflected in her Colt-blue eyes as she set the tray near me. It was far enough away that if I tried to reach it, I couldn't. There was a rag and a bowl and a needle with thread. Medic.

She wasn't wearing much. A really long button-up with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her father's shirt? There wasn't another shred of clothing on her. They weren't equipped to dress children.

As she knelt by the candle flame, I could see the bruising on her face. Her lip was split, her right eye darkening. Her own arms were bandaged. What had Michael done to this little girl? His own daughter. She had broken a few dishes. Was that cause for all this harm?

She looked up at me and it was the empty mask that Lark gave me. I had to look away. A child so small was supposed to smile.

"Please don't scream," she said, her voice soft as she knelt at my side and reached out to my face with a damp cloth.

I turned my face to her, but kept my eyes closed.

"Did she give you her name?" she asked me, a hesitant voice that suggested she wasn't used to talking.

"Yes," I replied.

"You'll remember all of this," she said solemnly. She felt sad for my existence.

This little girl tended to my wounds with the experience of someone much older. She spoke like someone much older.

"They call you Sky?" I asked and she withdrew from me.

"She lets you talk?" she asked me.

I wasn't broken, but I realized I might be breaking their rules. Slowly, I nodded.

"The others don't talk," she said as she inched closer to me and began dabbing at the wounds on my face. "They scream. All night."

This four year old girl spoke more than the Lark I knew. She still seemed like she was trying to trust. From the very beginning, she was two people in the same body. The girl that wanted to trust, and the hunter that would always be.

Tears stung at my eyes.

"Don't do that!" she told me quickly and wiped the tears from my eyes before they could fall. "They don't like that."

"Taking your sweet time," I heard and looked up to see Isaiah standing in the doorway. Sky was on her feet. "You like this one, too?" he barked at her and she shook her head quickly. "Then stay in here awhile!"

He shut the door. I heard the a bar slide into place.

Sky hit the door with such force, pounding on the surface and shouting his name. "Isaiah! Isaiah! Please! Open the door!" she cried out.

I wasn't sure what she was afraid of; the dark, or me. "Sky," I said softly. "I won't hurt you."

The pounding on the door stopped. I couldn't see much past the little candle, but I heard her back touch the door and she slid down to sit on the floor.

"Will you get in trouble for being in here?" I asked.

"Yes," she said simply.

"Even if you were locked in?" I asked.

Again, she said, "Yes."

When they opened the door, they wouldn't find her near me. I wondered if it would lessen her punishment.

As the candle burned, I watched cockroaches come out and skitter around the floor. They had vanished when there was commotion, but now that the quiet had returned, so had they. I heard shuffling from Sky's side of the room, and then a quick crunching noise. She was eating the roaches. I hung my head. She survived on roaches.

Michael and his boys got to eat fresh meat caught that morning. And Sky scurried around in the dark and ate bugs. It made me angry.

I pulled at the chains and the moment they rattled, Sky stopped moving. She was so still that, even though I could barely see her, I felt like I was alone. Invisible in plain sight.

I didn't hear her move again until the lock slid open on the door several hours later. She was on her feet again when it opened and the dim light spilled into the room. Nathanael was there. I knew he wasn't there for me.

He merely looked to Sky and she grabbed her tray, blew out the candle, and ran away.

"You look like hell warmed over, boy," he told me.

In my mind, I heard Bobby Singer's voice. It sounded like something he would say. I asked, "Do you know Bobby Singer?"

"Who?" Nathanael replied and I shook my head.

"Just a hunter," I said and tried to sit up straighter. Every muscle ached with stiffness.

"Danica," he said and drew my attention to his face, "is in a very rough spot because of you."

"I know," I told him.

"Why would you bring her here?" he asked.

I stared at him.

"A Colt like her would not return to a place like this. There are very few of us that leave. Few, as in myself, and whoever she is," Nathanael said. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted the truth," I said and felt selfish.

"You couldn't handle it when she said she didn't want to talk about it, could you?" Nathanael asked me. The Colt anger I saw in all of them was rising in him. "You can't do that to her!"

"I know!" I snapped back. A part of me had once thought Lark was stubborn. I knew better now. I was beginning to think that if we got out of here, I should keep my distance from her. If I let her fade back into the obscurity she knew, then she would be safe.

Lark didn't need me. She knew how to survive long before I ever came along.

"You're an idiot," Nathanael told me. "And Danica is going to suffer because of it. Colts have always looked out for themselves. I hope you're worth all this."

He left me there. I had put Lark in a bad spot. She had to keep me alive to get home. I was an archangel, not an idiot. I knew everything she had done so far was self-serving. Taking me to Sioux Falls had been to keep me from leading anything to her. She had to sleep sometime. It was better to keep the person that knew who she was close to her.

As I was sitting in my thoughts, Lark appeared in the doorway. She had her arms crossed as she leaned against the doorframe. "Hey," she said.

I looked to her and I wanted to smile. I couldn't.

"Don't tell me you're broken already," she said without a bit of humor.

She moved into the room and over to where I sat on the floor. Reaching out, she set a key into my shackles and freed me. I didn't move. I didn't want to move.

"Get your ass up, you weepy angel," she told me. She grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. When her hand touched my side as she steadied me against her, she withdrew it and looked at her palm. "Gabriel…?" she breathed. I almost heard genuine concern.

"I don't know if I can get us home," I told her.

"We'll figure it out," she replied and helped me walk down the hall.

Every step hurt as she nearly dragged me to the infirmary room that Nathanael had used to patch up Sky's feet. She helped me sit on a tall chair and she cleaned the wounds on my face with a clean cloth and a bowl of water.

I sat in silence and kept my eyes closed as she moved about me, until she said, "Lift your shirt."

I did as I was told. There were bruises blossoming all over my chest and ribs.

"Wish you had an angel around to magic you all better, huh?" she said and I saw a slight smirk cross her lips. Poor attempt at humor. She wasn't very good at it at all.

Fingertips on my shoulder, she pushed me to lay back on the chair. I looked at her hand as she pulled away from me. The skin over her knuckles was broken and bloody. She tended to me but not her own wounds. "La…" I began and realized I was saying the wrong name. "Danica…"

She looked to me with her empty expression and I didn't want to talk anymore. I laid back on the chair and listened to her walk out of the room. I felt a chill of fear run up my spine. I didn't want to be in here alone.

Silence ate away at me. There was only the roar of nothing. Then there was the tap of toes on the floor. "Sky?" I asked softly and turned my head to look down at the doorway.

The little girl peeked in at me. "How'd you know?" she asked.

"You walk on your toes," I told her.

She looked at her feet and then looked back to me and smiled. How could she find anything to smile about in this place?

"Sky! Get over here!" someone shouted. Every voice echoed menacingly in these hallways.

The girl looked at me and waved before running away. A flower in the midst of demons. She didn't belong here. I didn't belong here.

I closed my eyes for a moment and lost time. Had I fallen asleep? Why?

"Gabe," I heard, Michael's voice, and I had trouble opening my eyes. I was so tired.

I saw him standing by my feet and I sat up quickly. My head was spinning.

"You're helping the boys. Get up," he told me.

I rose to my feet. My only thought was where had Lark gone? At the door, Isaiah met me with a smile. It was a terrible, toothy grin. I didn't want to go with him. I wanted nothing to do with him. Out of spite, and if I had my powers, I would have destroyed this entire family.

"Time for you to see how men are supposed to act!" Isaiah said. He clapped a hand at the back of my neck and steered me down the hallway. I barely had a moment to glance back when Jonah and Isaac fell in step behind me.

We walked in silence until I heard sobbing behind one of the doors. Isaiah released me and opened the door. Inside, he flipped a light switch and harsh fluorescents filled the room. My eyes had trouble adjusting, but when they did, I wished they hadn't.

In the room was blonde woman. She sat curled upon a bed similar to the one Lark and I had shared. She wore dirty rags for clothes and her hair was a mess with blood and all kinds of other grime. She covered her eyes and cried.

Jonah and Isaac rushed past me, knocking me off balance. They leapt upon her like savages and held her hands above her head. One ankle was already chained to the wall. She had nowhere to go.

She screamed louder than any person I had heard before. My heart pounded in my ears.

Isaiah pulled me inside and closed the door behind me. He smiled to me before he went to that blonde woman and dropped his pants.

"Don't you look away, Gabe!" he told me, putting emphasis on my name as he descended upon that woman, pulling her clothes from her wounded flesh. She screamed as he forced her legs apart and thrust inside her without any regard to her fear. The two younger boys ran their hands over her body, grabbing her breasts and running their tongues over her skin.

It wasn't over quickly. This nameless woman suffered until Isaiah was done with her. And when he was, he withdrew from her and he was covered in the blood from her battered womanhood, and his own fluids.

He wiped himself off with his hand and pulled up his pants. His brothers left that poor woman and ran to the door. They swung it open and were back out in the hallway. Isaiah walked up to me, and with the hand he had dirtied, slapped my cheek. "One down," he told me.

One down. It repeated in my head. One down. How many were left? There were more? More women were locked in this dungeon, in the dark, only here to satisfy Isaiah Colt? Did Michael still partake? Did they share?

"Come on Gabe, don't look so sad. You're lucky you're a man, or you'd be on the receiving end," he told me. "Do you let Danica push you around? Is she on top?"

I wanted him gone. I would have snapped my fingers and sent his blood spattering all over the walls if I could.

"If you didn't have shit for blood," he told me, "I'd let you have the next one. But this is my place. This is a Colt place, and you? You're just Danica's tool to make a baby."

"Baby!" Jonah called from down the hall.

"No!" Isaiah shouted and he ran from the room.

The blonde woman looked at me and huddle about herself. He was out of sight and she looked at me like I had attacked her. "Who are you?" she shouted. "Why am I in here? Let me go! Please let me go!" She pleaded with me until I shut off the light and closed the door.

She started screaming again. What was I doing?

"Come on!" Isaac told me and grabbed my arm. He pulled me down the hall but my feet didn't want to work. I didn't want to go.

In the last room at the end of the hall, a woman moaned through labor pains. There was a baby coming from a long-haired brunette that lay against the wall. At least nine months she had been trapped in this hell. She was filthy, and so was the floor that the child was born upon.

The labor was relatively short, and when the baby was delivered, Isaiah was there to cut the umbilical cord with a dirty pocket knife.

"Please," the woman said, "give me my baby." She reached out to him with her arms wide open. She couldn't move far from where her ankle was chained.

Isaiah looked over the infant. It was a girl. A beautiful baby girl born in a dungeon. "No," he told her.

He took the child with him as he left the room. The new mother cried after him for her little girl. The light was turned off. The door was closed. She started screaming, but this time, because she didn't know what happened to her. The child had been born with my Enochian spell and, out of sight, she was gone from her own mother.

"It's a girl?" Isaac said sadly. "Dammit!"

"Another girl?" Jonah whined.

"Shut up," Isaiah told them. He then turned, swinging the child by her legs and bashing her body against the wall.

I staggered. I hadn't just seen that. I told myself this was a dream. He hadn't hesitated. He hadn't had a second thought. He had simply slammed the child against the wall and dropped her body to the floor. His brothers then stomped the body beneath their boots.

I was done. I wanted to leave. I couldn't wait two more days. We needed to leave. I turned around and saw Lark walking toward me. I felt relief. I could say nothing, but she could. She could wring their necks and be in her right.

I realized then that she didn't have anything. She was a female Colt. How had she and Sky even made it past their first day alive?

"Danica," Isaiah said quickly when he saw her.

She said nothing, only grabbed me by the back of my jacket and steered me away. I didn't understand.

"Sky!" Jonah shouted and the little girl came running past us with a bucket of water.

Lark stopped in her tracks. Slowly, she looked at me, through me. She released me and said, "Go help her," with a voice so cold that I didn't know what to do. "Go." she ordered me and I left her side.

Isaiah and his brothers laughed at me as they walked by with a bounce in their step. I glanced back to see them pass Lark. There was a brief standoff between the two of them, a locking of eyes and a tensing of muscles. She seemed calm, but he appeared livid. This was a woman he couldn't touch.

Sky was down on her knees, scrubbing at blood and picking up bones to put in a little burlap bag. Nothing phased her.

I knelt beside her and she looked at me like I was invading her space. "Help?" I asked.

She reached into the bucket of redding water and handed me a brush. I followed her lead. As I scrubbed, my mind kept going over Lark's expression. This had to be her forcing me to understand that my hands were bloody in this. Colt blood was on my hands. I was not innocent. This was me literally cleaning up the mess I had caused.

"You're quiet," Sky said, her voice drawing me out of my internal anger.

I looked to her to see her throwing a piece of the infant's smashed heart into the burlap bag. I sat back on my knees and looked at my hands. My fingers were stained red.

"Don't look at it," she told me. "Just do it."

I wanted to cover my eyes. I couldn't touch my face. I held my hands out before me. This was the first time the sight of blood got to me.

"Papa said I was blessed by an angel," Sky told me. I felt bile rising in my throat. I was physically sick. "He said that was why I didn't die."

I stared at her. She was happy to be alive in this place?

She reached out to me and touched my wrist. A child's bloody handprint on my arm made me fall still in my human skin.

"Always have hope," I told her. "Nathanael is trying to get you out of here. Don't give up on him. You'll be free of this one day."

I looked to her smiling face. Sky Colt's smile was heartwarming.

We continued cleaning on our hands and knees. Then I helped her dump the bucket through a grate in the floor. The dungeon had running water. She refilled the bucket from a spigot near the grate and back we went to the cell of the pregnant woman.

When we went inside and the light went on, the woman was sitting against the wall, covered in blood. She looked up to Sky and said, "Did I have a child?"

Sky paid her no attention as we set about picking up afterbirth and throwing it into the burlap sack. Then we scrubbed at the blood. There was still a stain, but there were stains everywhere.

How many children had been born in these rooms? How many of them had been put to death just for being born female?

We scrubbed that room as clean as we could get it and left.

"Please!" the woman called out to us. "Let me go?" She had no idea what happened.

Sky closed the door behind us. And we set about for clean water one more time.

The blonde's room was next. I didn't want to go in.

Sky didn't hesitate.

The blonde was laying on the floor, curled upon herself. She saw us and sat up, still covering her body as much as she could. "You're just a little girl," she said to Sky. "Why am I here? Can you tell me? Please? Please tell them to let me go." She looked at me and said, "You were here! Let me go!"

Sky gave the woman the bucket and walked out of the room, grabbing my hand as she went.

Outside of the closed door, she held my hand in hers. "Are you scared?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said.

After a moment, Sky asked me, "Are you scared?"

I exhaled, "Yes."

The blonde bathed herself within the few moments we left her alone. Then Sky retrieved the bucket without me and we left.

Her little stomach was growling as we walked down the hall. She was starving. I found myself getting hungry, too.

Down the halls we went until we were in a warm kitchen. Sky started a fire in the fireplace and pushed a pot over the flame. She then retrieved our burlap sack of body parts and she emptied it on the fire. The bones cracked and the flesh seared and melted over the heat. There was a stench that I have never been able to explain. Burning human.

The burlap sack went to a wash rack to be cleaned later, and she went to the pot with a wooden spoon that I hadn't seen her grab and she began stirring. It was the same deer stew from the day before. It had been left out all night. Would it make my human body sick?

I chose to eat, but only when Sky handed me a bowl. We scooped out small portions and sat on the floor. It was tasteless. It was disgusting. It was food.

Sky suddenly stood up. She grabbed my bowl and the little bit I had left and dumped the remnants in the pot before hiding the bowls. Just as she sat back down, Michael and his son Isaiah came in and grabbed the pot of deer stew. I followed Sky as we stared at the floor.

Just as quickly as they had come, they left. Sky looked up with her Colt-blue eyes and smiled to me. She was smart. She would survive, just like Lark.

"Come on," she said suddenly and got to her feet. She still stood on her toes.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"You have to be back in your room for Danica," she told me.

My room? Where I had been chained? I followed Sky back down the hall, but she stopped at the room Lark and I had shared the night before. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Sky opened the door for me and I went to the bed and collapsed on the mattress.

"Not like that," she told me. "Your clothes!"

I turned my head to look at her. I was tired, and she was telling me to strip down.

She looked down the hall and said, "I have to go! Bye!" and she ran away.

She was always running. Everything was quick. She was in a rush for everything. Did she still have more work to do? Was I getting off easy?

I jumped to my feet when I heard voices coming down the hall. "Would you consider moving home?" Michael asked. "Sky could use someone like you. She's soft."

"I will not," was the reply. Lark. "She'll turn out fine," she told him. There was a harshness in her voice, closed off and removed from him even though he walked beside her.

They came to a stop before the open door and I faced them. I didn't want to be without my clothes tonight.

"He's not ready for you at all," Michael told her.

Lark glanced to me over her shoulder. This was not the Lark I knew, the Lark that was interested in new things in the outside world. This was not the Lark that was willing to try chocolate cake because I set it before her. This was a Colt.

"I like stripping him," she told Michael. She stepped away from him and said, "But if Isaiah or anyone else steps into my room before I wake and disturbs me and mine, I will put a bullet through a head. You will lose a life."

"Understood," Michael said. He left then, followed by Nathanael.

Lark walked in and lit new candles around the room before closing the door. She didn't like the dark. Her eyes were on the floor until she came close enough to me that my feet entered her vision. She stopped still.

"Lark?" I whispered. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head.

I took a slow breath and started to remove my jacket. It was off my shoulders when she pulled it back up. She straightened my jacket and ran her hands over the fabric to smooth it out. Then, without warning, she set her forehead against my shoulder.

We stayed like that for so long, I wondered if she had fallen asleep on her feet.

"No…" she said softly and her voice faltered. "No one saves me, Gabriel," she whispered. "No one comes to save me."

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close. "I will," I said. I don't know what made me say it. I quickly let her go. I had crossed her boundaries and I withdrew myself from her.

Lark sat on the bed and slowly pulled off her boots. I sat beside her in the candlelit room. There was only one day left. We could make it. All of our hopes rested on Nathanael. We had to get out of this dungeon. I had to become an angel again.

Lark stirred several hours later. We had fallen asleep together. Her arms wrapped around me in the night and held me close. I didn't know if it was a conscious action of hers and I would never bring it up, but I let it happen. I was her safety net in this place, and she was mine. Sky had no one to turn to, and as fleeting as it would be, Lark had me. I didn't expect this to carry on after we left this place. I didn't expect her to even want me around her after this. I didn't think I wanted me around after this.

Slowly, Lark sat up in bed. I felt cold when she left me and I pulled the thin blanket up to my shoulders.

"Gabriel?" she asked softly and my eyes opened in the dark room.

I had slept. It was worrying me.

"Are you turning human?" she asked me.

"I think so," I replied.

"You were sleeping," she told me.

"I know."

"We leave today," she said adamantly.

"I thought…" I began. We had to make it through the full day. We had one more night in this place. That was what Nathanael had said. I was confused.

"We aren't staying here another night," she said.

"I can't fight my way out," I said.

"I can," she whispered. I could almost feel her doubt.

"We can wait," I told her.

She shook her head. "You're mortal," she replied, "and if you die here, I die here."

That was the most care I thought I would ever get out of her. In silence, we put on our shoes and left our darkened room.

We walked into the dining room with that large oak table and Nathanael was waiting for us. Lark sat, but I stood behind her. I didn't want to sit.

"I don't like that look," Nathanael said.

Lark replied, "What look?"

"You look like Michael when he's about to start killing things," he told Lark and she sat back in her chair.

"We're leaving today," she told him.

"I can't help," he replied.

"Can't or won't?" she asked sternly.

"It's not that simple," he told her. "I need Michael to think I am on his side. I have to get Sky out of here."

Lark nodded. "At midday, we're leaving."

I wanted to know how she could tell. I hadn't seen the sun since we got here.

"You could always stay," Nathanael said.

With a shake of her head, Lark said, "No. I will never come back here."

"Sky could use a positive role model."

Lark scoffed.

Michael came into the room then with his three boys following him. "He's learning," he said of me and my position behind Lark.

"Have fun last night?" Isaiah asked as he leaned forward on the table. "Did we show yours a few tricks?"

Jonah laughed, "No way, he's weak! He spent all evening cleaning up with the little bitch!"

Isaac joined in, "Are you sleepy?" he asked me. "Too tired to even try, huh?"

The Colts had fallen very far from where I had left them, when I had cursed them with an Enochian spell that made them invisible to the outside world. They were mad. How had Lark emerged from this hell hole differently?

"Go eat with the girl," Lark ordered me and I left to the kitchen.

When I walked inside, Sky waved to me and she smiled. Such a smile. She was happy to see me.

I sat down on the floor and she brought me a bowl of something. When I turned it to my lips, I found I was hungrier than I expected. It was gone in only moments.

She sat beside me, ate a little, and when my stomach growled again, she offered me her portion. I couldn't take it. I wanted it, but I couldn't take it.

I drew my knees to my chest and set my head upon them. How far I had fallen.

"Please don't leave," she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper.

I turned my attention to her and she was staring into her bowl as if it were the only important thing in the world.

"You're the only one that sees me," she said.

"I'll come back for you," I told her. "When I'm stronger, I'll come back for you." I didn't know what made me say it, but I made it my own personal vow. If I couldn't save this family and undo what I had done to them, then I could at least save one of them.

"Okay," she said and smiled to me.

We sat in silence for another eternity and then she turned her head and listened to the silence. She put the bowls away and went for the burlap sack and the bucket of water. Back to work. I followed her to the scene of the crime. Another child had been born, and another daughter of Samuel Colt had been killed.

I had spent so much time among humans, since before Lucifer's departure from heaven. I had walked the earth ever since and it was now that I had to pick up crushed bodies of infants that had barely taken their first breath. This was not how the female of the species was supposed to be treated; how anyone of the human species was supposed to exist.

I was no better than Lucifer, imposing Hell upon this family. And yet, here was Sky…

"What the hell are you doing?" echoed down the hall and Sky grabbed my hand and hurried me into an empty cell, my cell.

She closed the door enough to look through a small crack. I stood behind her. I wanted to see. Lark strode toward us with her fists clenched. Was it midday already?

"Danica!" Isaiah shouted.

"Leaving!" she said roughly over her shoulder. She gave him only a cursory glance and kept walking. Was she looking for me?

Isaiah raised a revolver in his hand and cocked back the hammer. "No one leaves!" he said.

I leapt out of the room. Pain ripped through my lower back and I fell. Lark caught me in her arms and kept me standing as my knees buckled beneath me. I held onto her jackets as she pulled her pistol and shot Isaiah.

He fell to his back and screamed louder than any of the women he had tortured.

"Time to go," Lark told me and she pulled me to my feet. She used her body to brace me and pulled me down the hall.

I knocked over Sky's bucket.

She ran with me alongside her until she came to an open room. We ducked in and shut the door. The light came on and she lowered me to the floor. I grit my teeth in pain. She stepped away from me and I looked down at the wound through my abdomen. The bullet had gone straight through.

"How bad is it?" I asked her.

Lark shrugged. "Not too bad," she replied.

Of course it didn't look bad to her.

She knelt down and had me put my hands on the wound. "Pressure," she said and the harder I pushed on the wound, the more it hurt.

I looked up to her and saw her look about the room. We were in the Colt armory. We had all the guns. She wasn't looking at the weapons though.

Absentmindedly, she wiped her hand on her shirt and then looked down. There was a growing red stain. The bullet had left me and gone into her. I hadn't saved her from it.

"Dammit," she sighed.

We were going to die down here.

"I'm sorry," I said again.

Lark knelt before me and sighed. "Not as sorry as I'm going to be…"

I didn't understand.

She moved my hands from my wound and stuck her fingers in it. I gasped. The pain was sharp and all consuming. The next words out of her mouth were in Latin as she drew a line across her forehead. She touched my blood to her tongue and then smeared the rest over her heart.

Her teeth grit together as she took blood from her own wound and used her fingertips to draw a line in her life's blood across my forehead. I didn't question her, only opened my mouth so that she could touch my tongue. Her blood was sweet with iron. When she rubbed her blood across my chest, I felt a pulling sensation at my vessel's heart. At my heart.

She clasped her hands together and concluded the spell with our names. My heart beat slow, but there was a second beating that fluttered in my ears like a frightened animal. I looked at Lark as she looked at me with her Colt-blue eyes and I knew. Even though her face was unreadable, that panicked heart was hers.

I looked down at the bullet wound in my flesh and found it healing. I raised my shirt and saw my bruises fading.

"Time to go," she said.

I clambered to my feet. I felt better than I had been. I felt like me. I felt my angelic power coursing through me. I looked to Lark. She was still bleeding. I reached forward to heal her and she caught my hand.

"No," she told me. "Save your energy til after we get the hell out of here."

"We have to go," I said. I didn't like the look of the blood flowing out of her body.

I opened the door to the armory and Michael and his sons were waiting for us with guns drawn. Isaiah was bleeding from his chest, but he showed no signs of backing down.

One glance to Lark and I knew we had to hurry. She didn't look good and she slumped where she stood.

"Thanks for the party," I said, "but we've got to go!" I raised my hand and light flowed from it. I knocked them back into the wall. It was all I had. I couldn't kill them. They lived through this. I wanted to kill them.

"Gabriel…" Lark wheezed and her hand fell upon my shoulder.

I looked at her. This wasn't just the bullet wound. This was her spell.

"Now…" she choked.

I grabbed her as she used the little strength she had to give Michael and his sons the middle finger. And we were gone.

We returned to her present and she fell away from me. She crawled on the carpet with little strength and vomited blood against the wall.

"Lark!" I ran to her as she fell over and and lay flat on the floor. "Lark! Come on!" I cradled her against me and used my power to heal her. She didn't wake. She breathed steadily, but her eyes remained closed.

Again, I was helpless…


End file.
